3 Things That Only Feel Like Love
August 16, 2008
alucard202
Note: It is a kind of thinking….
Love is a tricky emotion. There are some things that feel like love but
they are much too superficial to be the real thing. Real love takes
time and doesn’t happen over night. Here are three things that people
often confuse for love.
Lust
Lust is the feeling that is often mistaken for love at
first sight. Lust is an intense and sudden attraction to somebody you
hardly know. It is mistaken for love because the attraction is so
strong.
Lust can feel like love because the feelings of attraction are
strong and all-consuming. The emotions stirred up by lust can feel very
real but they are based on a fantasy. To love somebody you must know
them well but many people fall in lust while they are still strangers.
What people in lust fall for is a fantasy of what might be and reality
can get lost in the excitement.
Overwhelmed by physical attraction people in lust can’t keep
their hands off of each other. They think about each other constantly
and talk about one another all the time. Lust is a happy feeling
brought on by passionate attraction. If you are inexperienced in
matters of the heart it is very easy to mistake all that passion for
love.
Lust differs from love like night differs from day. Lust
happens in the early phase of a relationship when people don’t yet know
each other. Lust is based on a fantasy, and the fantasy and reality
don’t always mesh up. This is where lust runs out of steam.
Although physical attraction is definitely a key ingredient
in any romantic relationship, love is more than just a physical
longing. If a relationship is all about physical attraction it is based
on lust. Really loving another person takes time and it can’t be based
on physical attraction alone.
Obsession
Obsessions are often mistaken for love because people rationalize the
crazy feelings they are having. They assume that it must be love if the
other person is always on their mind. Obsession is similar to lust but
it is much more misleading and destructive. While lust is often
fleeting, fading as two people come to know each other better,
obsession sticks around.
The more time and effort invested in an unhealthy obsession the
more intense the obsession can become. People in an obsessed state have
a one track mind where the other person is concerned and they often
lose touch with who they are as an individual. This loss of
individuality creates a vicious circle of behavior where the obsessed
person grows more and more dependant on the other person to bolster
their sense of self.
Even unrequited love, love that is not returned, can become an
overwhelming obsession. When one person believes they are in a
relationship that doesn’t really exist, or when one person is more
invested in an existing relationship than the other, the foundation for
an obsession has been laid.
Real love is nurturing and helps people grow but obsession is
debilitating. If you feel like you have lost yourself, if you are
always striving to please your partner without them doing the same for
you, and if you find yourself making all decisions in your life based
on the feelings and needs of the other person you could be dealing with
obsession.
Rebounding
A rebound is a relationship that starts up very
quickly after another relationship has ended. Rebounds are rarely based
on love but are really a way of alleviating the loneliness people feel
when a relationship ends.
Rebounding can feel like love for the simple reason that the people
involved want to be in love. They are used to the security of being in
love and more than anything else they want to feel that security again.
They convince themselves that they are in love when they are actually
missing the safety and comfort of the relationship they left behind.
If an old relationship keeps interfering with the progress of
a new relationship it could mean that the relationship is a rebound.
When somebody is on the rebound they are not entirely over their
previous relationship. They may still be trying to work out unresolved
issues from that relationship. Rebound relationships may feel like love
but they are still impacted by unsettled feelings from the past.
Entry Filed under: Kind of Thinking
Leave a Comment
Some HTML allowed:
<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>
Subscribe to comments via RSS Feed
