How to know if you love them?

[AmiFey]

So there's this girl I've known for a few years. We started going out officially last year, but we'd been really close for a while before that. I don't feel like going into detail on the scenario right now because I'm doing homework, but I was just wondering, how do people tell if they're in love? I don't want this to be one of those stupid immature high school relationships, which is why i'm looking into it. Any thoughts?

[Aletheia*]

Only you know the answer to that question. None of us can give you an answer because only YOU know the true answer.

[AmiFey]

I'm just wondering what other people's experiences with love have been. I'm pretty sure I love Jenn, and I know not all love is the same, but I still like comparing experiences cuz I'm weird like that :P

[Chris.]

Shannon answered it 100% correct. Only you can decide or know when you are in love. Each one of us have different definitions of love, and we all have to find something or someone to fulfill our OWN meaning of love.


What is love to me:
I've only had one love, and to be honest, once you truely start loving someone, its rare (or almost impossible) to 100% get over that love. But anyway, Love is very hard to define - to me its just having someone there that can put up with me. That will be at my beck and call 24/7. Someone I can be gross in front of, or someone that I can just be myself. Someone who can read my every movement - my smile, my walk, my everything and know if or if I'm not happy. Someone that I feel lost over even though she just left 5 minutes ago. Someone that I am perfect to be with. Like I said, its very hard to explain, so maybe the song that I love can describe this alot better than me.

Definition of Love: Andrew Landon:
Love is a funny thing.
You expect it to be easy. You expect it to be a world of roses and laughs and perfect moments that you find only
in movies.

You expect her to
always say the right thing, and
always know exactly how you feel,
or exactly how to react to it.
You expect her to calm you down when you're yelling or to chase you
when you run away.

You expect so much that you feel entirely, and utterly defeated when something doesn't exactly match up to all your plans. But that's the thing.

Love isn't a plan. It doesn't have
a certain beginning and it
certainly has no end, or a visible
finish line to those deeply in it.

Love happens; it is so
incredibly messy. People around
you can't comprehend why you do
the things you do, or why you
fight so hard for something that
seems to cause you so much pain.

Because simply, they can't see.
They can't see the invisible ring
of insanity that surrounds you
when you're in love. It's
inconvenient and painful and
devastating at times, but we can't
live without it.

What you don't learn is how hard love is. How much work it takes. How much of ourselves we have to put into it.
How it isn't worth it until we are
complete and utter idiots about it.

Love isn't her calming you
down when you yell. It's her
yelling, just as loud, just as
hard, right back at you, right in
your face to wake you up and to
keep you grounded.

It isn't her or him bringing you roses
everyday or cute things that make
your relationship appear more
presentable. It's right after a long
fight, that drains the life and
bones right out of both of you, and
yet her or him showing up at your door the next morning anyway.

It's not her saying all the right things or knowing exactly how to handle you. So no, it's not her caressing your
hair and telling you everything is
going to be okay. It's her
standing there, admitting she's
just as scared as you are.

You have to remember that with love, you're not the only one involved.
You've unknowingly put your life,
your heart into the palm of
another's hands and saying,
here. Do what you will. Mash it
into a million pieces, mash it into meat. Or forget I ever handed it to you in the first place. Just as long as you
have it.

It makes reality invisible and it
erases all the lines that we
shouldn't cross. Because love
isn't about fencing ourselves in;
feeling safe, feeling sure about
the future.

It's about scaring the shit out of every nerve in our body, but pushing forward anyway.

Because all the fighting and all
the tears and all the uncertainty
is worth it. And it's a hell of a
lot better, than being 100% happy
without someone to show us that
there is a world of a difference
between feeling 'happy' and
feeling whole.

[Megan1]

Love is a commitment and an action, not a feeling. You love someone (not just romantically, but any kind of love) if you want what is best for them reguardless of what that means for you, you patiently endure whatever the relationship comes with, you are nice to them, and you love them selflessly (meaning you want to be with them for their benefit, not for you own). That's what love is, not some emotional force that clicks when you see someone. I mean, love does come with emotion and attraction usually, but that's not what love is. Love is doing what is best for them.

Oh, and love is unconditional, so you love them despite their faults- just as if their faults didn't exist. Not that you need to be okay with everything that they do or that you can't correct them, but you have to love them just the same despite those things and believe that they can change those things.

[Koharuchan]

Originally Posted by AmiFey

I'm just wondering what other people's experiences with love have been. I'm pretty sure I love Jenn, and I know not all love is the same, but I still like comparing experiences cuz I'm weird like that :P

Like Shannon said, only you know when you're in love. As far as sharing experiences in love, this is when I realized I was in love with my boyfriend. Now, I'd had very strong feelings for him for nearly a year when this occured, but his actions after this incident really affected me and I started to realize how much I really loved him.

I'll narrow the story down to the main details. Some girls were trying to follow me. It was after dark, so we didn't see them. I didn't do anything to them, they just came from nowhere. I was sucker punched in the back of the head HARD, and I nearly fell on my face. By the time I turned and had my pepper spray, they were running off laughing. Jon ran toward them and yelled, saying he'd beat their asses if they came anywhere near me again. However, instead of chasing them, he immediately came back to my side and rushed me straight home. He checked my head to be sure I wasn't bleeding. Then his paramedic training kicked in and he asked me questions about how hard I was hit, exactly where I was hit, and where it hurt. He brought me water and told me to drink it all. I have a seizure disorder, so a blow to the head is extremely dangerous for me. He knew this, and was very worried and kept a close eye on me. I was so shocked by what happened I started to cry a bit, and he held me. After our 2 friends got there (the 4 of us were going to a convention together) I was calmed down and we went to the convention and attended the concert and rave. On the way out he brought extra water bottles in case I became dehydrated, and he stuck to me like glue the rest of the night. When we got home I was exhausted, and when I laid down he had me roll on my stomach and he massaged my back until I fell asleep.

Jon has always protected and taken care of me, even before we started dating. The concern he showed for me and the actions he took for my safety made me realize more than ever how much I cared for him, and I realized I loved him.

Everyone's experiences are different, and everyone has different ideas about love, but that was my experience and how I realized I was in love.

[Nicole!]

You'll know it when you are in love. You won't have any doubts about it, due to it being a strong feeling.
So only you know the answer to this. If you have to ask, then you probably aren't in love yet.

[Megan1]

Originally Posted by Megan1

Love is a commitment and an action, not a feeling. You love someone (not just romantically, but any kind of love) if you want what is best for them reguardless of what that means for you, you patiently endure whatever the relationship comes with, you are nice to them, and you love them selflessly (meaning you want to be with them for their benefit, not for you own). That's what love is, not some emotional force that clicks when you see someone. I mean, love does come with emotion and attraction usually, but that's not what love is. Love is doing what is best for them.

Oh, and love is unconditional, so you love them despite their faults- just as if their faults didn't exist. Not that you need to be okay with everything that they do or that you can't correct them, but you have to love them just the same despite those things and believe that they can change those things.

I want to add to what I said here. This is how to know that you love someone....but loving someone doesn't automatically mean that they are "the one". You can love lots of people, but only one person is the one for you. So even if you read my first post and realize that you do love her, that doesn't automatically mean that you should marry her. lol That's something that you'll still need to figure out.

[niente_]

Wow, I dunno how to explain it ... you just know. It's a difficult thing to realise. Like I thought I was madly in love with a guy, I couldn't believe we were going out, i thought everything was perfect ... then he dumped me because he wasn't getting much physical action from me, and i was heartbroken .... or so I thought. It wasn't until i ACTUALLY fell in love 2 years later that I realised that guy was just a crush.

And whoever said you never truly get over the people you were in love with, that is true. In fact, even though I've got a boyfriend now, me and my ex (the one I fell in love with 2 years later after the crush) are meeting up tomorrow to have a chat after it came out during a drunken night out that we're still not really over each other even though we split up 9 months ago.

So yeah, not sure how to explain it ... I just knew. I wanted to tell him I loved him after 5 days of knowing him ... true this involved the consumption of alcohol, but that was the first day we kind of got together ... and when took me out for a meal and asked me out, I desperately wanted to tell him I loved him, even though I knew it was a bit too soon. I couldn't wait to say it. He was just so perfect to me and everything I ever wanted. For our anniversary I wrote him a list of 111 reasons why I loved him ... I felt like the luckiest girl in the world. I genuinly wanted to marry him and have his kids. But unfortunately, that wasn't the future he wanted, and was part of the reason why we had to break up ... and living without him was the worst feeling ever. Seeing him now (we are still good friends) takes me back to how I used to feel and I feel all smiley. I think you can fall in and out of love, but when you have been in love, those feelings always stay with you.

Wow that was long winded and relatively unhelpful .... sorry :P

[Hollifire]

You'll definitely know when you're in love. No one can be like 'Yup, you're in love.' because everyone has different feelings and only you know how you feel towards someone. Trust me, when you're in love it's powerful & all consuming, so you'll for sure know what you're experiencing.