RE: Romantic "Love"
I don't understand some of these.
"Did I enter the 'love-market' with strong expectations of what love was supposed to feel like?"
What does this mean.
"Did my present love begin shortly after the end of a previous love?
Did I 'fall in love' on the 'rebound'?
When one love ended,
did I just begin loving the next available person
who did not have too many negative qualities?"
Why do you assume I am in love? What if I am not sure if my present "thingy" qualifies as love? Precisely how much time is "shortly after?"
"Did I simply tell myself that I was ready to 'fall in love'?"
I figure things out by talking to myself, which means I'm a loony. Never did I say these exact words. How much deviation from this literal wording is enough to constitute a no? Actually, I don't even understand the spirit of the thing being said, so I can't say whether or not anything I've told myself has the same meaning.
"Do I experience love as an emotion happening to me?
Is 'falling in love' a passive experience—like falling asleep?"
I have to actively make myself fall asleep. I don't understand what this means.
"Did I just let myself fall madly, passionately, gloriously in love?"
No cynical retrospective allowed?
"Have we experienced instant intimacy,
the feeling that we know each other immediately?"
Jesus Christ, I hope not. That just means you're blinded by something.
"Have we been soul-mates from the beginning of the world?"
Neither of us was alive at the beginning of the world. I don't think the originator of this quiz is too stupid to realize that. So, what the bleach-drinking fuck does this mean?
"Do we have a sudden feeling of agreement about everything?"
What.
"Is _____ the most wonderful person I have ever met?"
Yes.
Does this mean that I had teh romanz for the previous most wonderful person I had ever met, and it ceased to be romantic when I met the current most wonderful?
"Have I ever been 'in love' with a celebrity?
For instance, have I sent love letters to famous people,
hoping they would miraculously respond to me?"
This is apparently a thing real people do. They are fucking lunatics and should be made into soylent green. I fail to understand how this relates to experiencing an actual relationship.
"Do I gloss over the fact that thousands of other people
are also 'in love' with the same person?
Does being in a crowd of people all 'worshiping' the same person
make me feel even more 'in love' with him/her?"
As far as I can tell, thousands of people aren't in love with the same person, because the object of my affections is not a social butterfly or a worshipper of the latest fashion fads, and (yes I'll say it) doesn't think the highest calling is being a model. Does this mean that you can't have romance if your other half isn't attractive by consensus? That just seems horribly dismissive to hideous monsters like myself. OH WAIT, EVERYTHING IN THE UNIVERSE ALREADY IS
"If there is no real relationship, if we have never even talked,
does the image of my love-object keep appearing in my mind
—unbidden, sometimes unwelcome
because it prevents me from getting on with my life?"
Um... we have talked. And our very first interaction was, if not strictly speaking a conversation, still "talking," and it was the content of what she said that made me not dismiss her as another dumbass. So, both a yes and a no are incorrect.
"Have I sometimes wanted someone to love me even tho I did not want to love him/her?"
What. Actually, I think there is a word for this on Tumblr because making up words instead of just saying sentences aids communication somehow.
"Do I examine carefully the behavior of the one I love for signs that he/she really cares about me? Do I manufacture signs of love from almost nothing?"
Motherfucker, I am a creeperworld player from way back. Manufacturing stuff from almost nothing is my THING.
But seriously I don't know, I'm honestly scared to observe her because I got the ALL ATTENTION IS STALKING YOU PERVERTED FUCKS speech.
"When I am ignored or rejected by my love-object, do I look for subtle signs of love even in the discouragement?"
I'm one of those horrible abominations that considers "friendzoning" a positive outcome. So is that a yes? Is a poorly defined and overly restrictive conventional idea of romance making me think its all bullshit thus being okay with "just" friendship included in what the question is asking?
"Do I interpret any response as a sign that he/she really notices and cares about me?
Do I sometimes keep a 'love' going for a long time, sustained by mere crumbs of hope?"
I did before. I have more than "mere crumbs" to go on right now. Do I take the past actions as a pattern?
"Do I sometimes spend hours pining for my secret love?"
I spend hours ruminating about why I will never be loved in any capacity, and why this is a morally good thing and why I should be tortured with sandpaper on the eyes for the entirety of my life. Does that count?
"Do I worry about the depth of my beloved’s feelings for me?"
Define depth, please.
"When my beloved tells me that he/she loves me, do I wonder what that means?"
We're both writers, mate. "Show don't tell" is our bloody way of life.
"Does the intensity of his/her emotional response seem more important than the day-to-day activities we share?"
Ummm.... what? So first it was "I love from afar" and now it's "we do stuff together?" This quiz is making no sense and contradicting itself. Also, this question is comparing apples to the price of oranges.
"Do I keep track of how often he/she spontaneously says "I love you", without first hearing that I love him/her?"
WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED TO YOU TALKING ABOUT BEING REJECTED, MATE? So you are assuming that my thoughts and feelings for all people are IDENTICAL and every relationship is the same as any other? Is something else going on here that I missed?
"Do I spend considerable time rehearsing an encounter to make sure everything will be just right?"
I do this for bloody everything. So, non-representative...
"Do I sometimes try to create feelings of love? Do I want to believe that my feelings are "true love"?"
Since even you are putting this in quotes, I get the feeling not even the quiz knows what it's talking about. I certainly don't.
"Do I sometimes confuse being in love with pretending to be in love?"
What
"41. Does 'falling in love' transport me to a dream world?
42. Am I enchanted by _____'s appearance?"
1. Blind people cannot love?
2. These are so flowery I cannot parse them.
"When I think of us together, does it sometimes seem like a fairy tale? Am I clinging to an illusion, something that was never really there?"
How the fuck am I supposed to know if anything is/was there if it isn't over yet?
"Do we sometimes remain silent because speaking might break the spell of love?"
Stop it with the fucking magical language, these questions are useless.
"Do my friends sometimes wonder what I see in _____?"
My friends IRL either don't know about her or have not told me that they know.
"When I reach out for love, does it sometimes disappear like a mirage?"
When I reach out for well-written questions that help me to understand, do they sometimes disappear like utter nonsense vomited onto a website?
"Have I found the lost half of my being? Do we merge with each other?"
Only slimes can love? Again with all the magic stuff. Does it all take place in D&D?
"Can I see directly into _____'s soul? Is communication no longer necessary because we have become one person?"
What the fuck am I reading
"Might my handsome prince/princess turn back into a frog?"
I can't even
"Does romantic love sometimes seem to be an artificial feeling?"
So this test is to determine if we experience romantic love? Then based on this test, it feels very artificial. Based on the actual thing I feel and apparently mislabel by calling love, no it isn't.
"62. Do I feel tuned like a harp, ready for my Dream Lover to play songs of love?
63. Do I feel set like a mouse-trap, ready for "my intended" to come along?
64. When I imagine 'falling in love', do I get a warm glow?"
What
(All of section K)
Better question, are you an immoral shit?
"Romantic love is like watching a movie."
Movies are ruined by romance because it's always boring and the same and fake.
"Do I enjoy allowing myself to fall gloriously in love the way it happens in the movies?"
I give up. It's assuming I have experiences that I don't. If I started having a movie-like relationship, I'd like someone to point it out so I could kill myself.
Hello, traveler.
This is an ancient account I have not used in a long time. My views have changed much in the intervening months and years.
Nonetheless, I refuse to clean it up. Pretending that I've held my current views since the beginning of time is what we in the industry call a lie. Asking people to do so contributes to moralistic self-loathing. "See, those people have nothing damning! I do! I'm truly vile!"
Because you can never be a good person with a single blemish on the moral record, I thought that simply entertaining some thoughts made me irredeemable. Though I don't care for his writing style, William Faulkner presents a good counterexample. He went from being a typical Southern racist to supporting the civil rights movement. These days we'd yell at him for that, probably.
People are allowed to change their views.
Nevertheless, this period of my life has informed some of how I am today. In good ways and bad ways. To purge it would be to do a disservice to history. Perhaps it will not make anyone sympathetic, but it may help someone understand.
If, after reading all this, you still decide to use the post above as evidence that I am evil today, ask yourself if you have never disagreed with the moral code you now follow. In all likelihood you did, at some point. If some questions are verboten, and the answer is "how dare you ask that," don't expect your ideological opponents to ever change their minds.
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