What is falling in love?

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What is falling in love like? Is it purely sexual feelings, or is it something enterely different?

If you've ever fallen in love, please try to explain what it feels like.

If you're gay and have fallen in love, please try to explain it even better, because I'm gay too and most interested in what falling in love feels like for a gay guy. I know that because of sexual feelings but am not sure if that's the same as love.

I'd like to know, so that I know if I myself have actually ever fallen in love or not.

I'm a straight female, but here goes. I'll have to tell my story to explain.

I had my first date with Nick at the station. He was interesting, sorta like a close friend, except there was something else in the air, something I couldn't define. The station was deserted. Slowly, yet suddenly, I could only see him. I was hanging on every word he spoke. I couldn't move. Butterflies filled my stomach. I was giving him direct eyecontact, because I could. Everything seemed happy, (NT's use the word 'rosy', which is exactly right) everything seemed 'soft,' tender, romantic. I was lost in his eyes. We kissed. Right there, on the station. I didn't want to let him go, didn't want to lose him. There was nothing sexual there, except for this feeling of "OMG, I want to know him, I want to hold him forever!"

Now, since I haven't seen him, I feel so lonely it hurts. I get little flash-backs, memories hitting me at random times, and it hurts. I want to see him again.

It's really hard to explain. Perhape you haven't been there, it's just been lust, but yeah, take what you need.

Being in love ensures that we breed and carry on the species. Lust serves the same function.

My favorite definition of love, the one I find to be most true, was given by the writer L. Ron Hubbard:

"Love is a mixture of respect and admiration for another person."

This is not lust. Lust does not respect, although it admires in its way. If you feel deep respect and admiration for someone, enough that you kind of want to be part of that person, then it's more toward love. I think Soma's explanation hit on that very nicely.

I define love as "love+lust=love."

But I have never been in love or had a girlfriend.
I have had many stupid crushes, some which still haunt me.
But I think half of the crushes were normal human emotions while the other half
were Asperger Disorder related "special interest" behavior.

I hope that makes sense to someone other than me!

--
Spencer

http://ckjcwf.ytmnd.com/

I once dreamed of a guy who I was in love with and he was in love with me, and was like a super great friend, and wanted to sleep with me. For a while after that dream I knew what love was, but now it's faded away again and I see my lonely future without love again

Love is when you can't get somebody out of your head for a single day for the next 5 years after you last see them.

I can give you experience of the only time I was truly in love. Everything that was important became insignficant. Love songs that I previously thought were crap, I sang with passion. I lost my appetite, surviving on 1 meal a day for two weeks. Nothing this woman could do was wrong, nothing about her was imperfect. She was the epitome of beauty. But now I look back it's probably because it was the only person who began to understand what kind of a person I was ( I didn't know about AS at the time). Like most of my relationships with 'friends', it never solidified into anything long term.

At more cynical moments, I often feel that:

'Lust' is a word that was invented to make us feel ashamed of our sexual desires. 'Love' was a word that was invtented to make the amourous feelings of lust sound more dignified when (or because) they lack a sexual element.

I am a lesbian and I have had lots of crushes on females.But I have only fallen in love with 3.

My first real love was at age 14(she was 16).I didn't know that she loved me,too,nd that is very sad...

But anyway,we first became really good friends.It wasn't long until I absolutely ENJOYED being with her,she was in my every thought, I respected her,admired her,and wanted to always be with her.It wasn't until she moved did she tell me that she loved me and I told her I felt the same...But hey,she may be coming back to Mississippi for a short while!

Then I had this thing for one of my best friends for a while.

And now I actaully love someone from here...

-SpaceCase

Ooh! Ooh! I did this as an essay question on a test today!! !

Visual aid: http://www.psy.pdx.edu/PsiCafe/Overhead ... arLove.gif LINKED so as not to stretch the page. Open it in another window and refer to it.

accodring to the triangle theory of love, there are SEVEN types of love (all of course can have variations or degrees). Stuff like this is important because love has soooooooo many stiuplative definitions and personal meanings and nuances. Don't let anyone tell your "This is what love is FOR SURE." No. That's just your perception of it. Love is a nebulous, one-syllable word which people accurately described in the Giver (great book) as having become meaningless because of misuse.

Anyway, seven types of love:

INFATUATION: passion alone: This is a "crush," a hot, steamy, "I know nothing about this person but I just WANT them" type of feeling.

FAUTOUS LOVE: Passion and commitment: This one I think of as a vegas wedding. "I'm totally into you, I want to spend my life with you, and by the way, what's your last name?"

EMPTY LOVE: Commitment alone: Sort of like a mail-order bride, or Anna Nicole Smith. You're married to someone you don't want to go near- but you want to stay married!

COMPANIONATE LOVE: Commitment and intimacy: I really like this one! This can be a good thing in the later years of a marriage; like my grandparents. They are friends and they are committed to each other but they sleep in seperate rooms and have for a looooooong time. I always associate this with 'cute old people." Hey, remember, that "spark" usually has an expiration date of a year from the inital ignition, so this aint' a bad future for ya. (and when the "spark" dies, nothing nessessarily went wrong; maybe time just took its course. Stick with it if everything else is fine. At least you're getting sleep now instead of lying awake obsessing, ya know?)

LIKING: This is just freindship. You can love your friends. Can you wrap your brain around that???? THERE ARE DIFFERENT KINDS OF LOVE AND NOT ALL OF THEM ARE ROMANTIC.

Romantic love: Intimacy and liking, NO COMMITMENT. I hate this one. HATE IT! People seem to think that this is being "in love." OK, fine, but it would suck for me to be in something like this. "Yeah, I like yo, yeah, I'm attracted to you, no, I don't want to only be with you/be with you for an extended period of time." Ugh. It SUCKS. I'm depressing myself. Long history with my mom's past in this one. Moving on:

CONSUMMATE LOVE: This is "the best one" and what most people mean by "ture love." It means you like the person, you're attracted to them, and you want to be with them. And hey, I'm all for it.

Just don't be upset if it turns into companionate love, that's all I'm saying.