Recently a lot of things have been triggering the subject of love up in my mind lately; what is love? Why do we feel as if we need love? Why do we feel as if we need it from different people and how do we find it?
Now being one who hasn't experienced many occurrences with the romantic kind of love, it is easy to think and whine to myself "Ohh I've never felt love, I probably never will" etc. etc. But reflecting on it now I begin to realise how stupid and selfish it is to think and feel as if you have never been loved when, in fact, it is always around you. I am fortunate enough to have a lovely family and a close group of friends and, although we may not be the kind of people to go out spurting "I love you" at the end of every conversation, when you look at your relationships from a 3rd person perspective, you realise that it is there all the time.
In my family life personally, I know it is there when my dad picks me up when it is raining, or when my mum still makes my lunch-box even after 16 years despite the fact that I should obviously be doing it myself. I also feel my love for them mostly when I don't want to disappoint them or when I want to make them proud - also when they make me proud. I also feel it towards my brother when I am proud of him for over-coming something or succeeding in his work; I also know it is there because when they are happy, I am happy.
With my friends, although they will rip the piss out of me for writing this if they ever see it, I know that there is a different kind of strange love there. We talk to each other everyday, just when we have news or a thought or anything really, we will go most places with each other even if one of us doesn't want to go and we just feel so comfortable around each other. Like scarily comfortable. You can't even describe the kind of love that is between friends, it has just been planted there at some point of your lives and has just grown unknowingly and it never goes away. The kind of love you all cringe at the aspect of but can't deny it is there.
Now to love love, the kind of love that lovers love with if you get me. Although this hasn't happened to me (ahem yet), I don't really know where it comes from. Although I mildly believe in love at first sight and love (haha love) the aspect of it, I think that the best loves come out of friendships. Getting to know someone is something that makes you fall in love with the person. I think from this, a larger kind of love can grow making it the lovey kinda love. I think with love it also cannot be forced - you have to be patient. (I very almost started ranting about the 'being hard to get' stereotype but I quickly deleted it because it doesn't belong in this post, but I think I will make a ranty post about that and link it here.) But saying this, I also think that love can happen by chance and that a lot of the time, romance is friendship built on top of a chance, i.e. meeting someone by chance, and deciding or being able to build a friendship on top of that, which then goes into the process of love etc. I really don't even know where I am going with this.
As for why we need and want it, I believe it is because, as dependent creatures, we need to feel needed and we like to be able to rely on a close range of people for certain things. We like to be able to share our thoughts with people, and the thoughts that we can't share with them people, we like to be able to share with a single person who lovey love. I think we also like leaving our marks on people and it is interesting when you see how a person acts and speaks because of the people who surround them, people who have made their marks. I also like the quote "It's exciting when you find parts of yourself in someone else." (I think it pretty much speaks for itself.)
Also remember how we come to love animals and pets (wont get into that).
Although I haven't wrote as much as I could on this topic, I will stop here because I don't want to keep you here any longer. In a semi kind of mini conclusion, I think that love is a controversial and risky topic to talk about because its ideas and values are different for every person and that when you think you have definitely made a statement about love, another thought questions it and you begin to question whether your whole idea of love is wrong. This post got way more complicated than planned and it doesn't even have a real meaning but I hope you all have a lovely Valentine's day and even if you don't have a valentine, it's okay, because love is always around you.
