Wow - fascinating topic and it’s really interesting to read all your opinions. Many of those I share.
As for me, I can say that I strongly believe in the concept of romantic love. I just don’t think that it’s necessarily the way people picture it, the way Hollywood movies want to make us believe it is.
Some of you guys brought pretty good examples of what is about for you. I read about holding the hair when your significant other when they vomit or sacrificing bits of yourself. And Jojo mentioned that this was the way she felt about close friends and family, too.
Well, maybe I have the wrong kind of friends (or family... um...) but I don’t feel that way. I have a best friend and we have the greatest times together. We can call each other day or night, no matter what. But this is immensely different from the things I experience when I’m in love (well, I’ve only been in love once, so my opinion might change sometime).
There is this strong bond that you feel. The need to be with each other. The will to fall asleep in their arms and wake up again next to their sleepy face. The wish to read their thoughts and the hope you are in them constantly. And the will to do all these things for the rest of your lives.
I’m not saying that love *has* to last all your life. As so many of you pointed out, it grows. And all that grows, can “just as easily” fade for a lot of reasons. Which is why I don’t think that there is only *one* person made for me out there in the world.
But I do believe that there are people who I can feel more for than “just” the love I feel for my friends and my family. And with some luck these person(s) will love me back.
For the previous seven years, I used to have a boyfriend... that I didn’t love. I thought that being with someone who likes you, who doesn’t exactly treat you bad, who is faithful, that all these things are enough to stay with him for the rest of my life. And it would probably have been. But it didn’t make me happy. And I got even more unhappy, realizing that there are people who manage to make my heart skip a beat and my stomach do somersaults.
So, I’m not saying that being in a relationship without the soulmate-feeling is a bad thing – not at all. But I do believe that there is romantic love out there. And if you have experienced it, you will know so. And you’ll never want to let it go again.
