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What Is This Thing Called Love?


 [7/19, 21:49] Me: What is this Love? I know brotherly Love, parental Love, and God’s Love. But this one, what is it?

[7/19, 21:50] Friend: Omo!!!!!!! That is a tough question. It’s really unexplainable.


This is an excerpt from a conversation I had with a friend. I wanted to know what ‘love’ is, the type that makes people get married to each other. I have several questions about it, and I’d like some answers. Something that fits and is fairly recognizable.


I’ll start with the biggest question. Is there only one person we are meant to love? Is someone out there The One for us? Okay, this is not a question I answered because I do not believe in The One. There is no one person out there who is the one for you neither are you the one for someone. However, if the LOML of your life can be any of more than seven billion people on earth, shouldn’t there be a reasonable limit on how many people you can have a strong affection for or any other variant of Love? Is two or three people an appropriate number of people you can love in your lifetime? Or maybe there’s no limit on how many people you can love. Although it sounds incredulous to hear someone say they have been in Love a hundred times. I’d probably respond with a question: were you in Love with all these people? Like all of them?


So, most people who agree with me that The One is a myth. Okay, here’s my next question. If, at one point, you had intense feelings for someone, does it invalidate similar feelings for someone else? Let me illustrate. You dated A, said the i-love-yous, but it didn’t work out maybe death, genotype incompatibility, or an irreconcilable flaw. You move on and find someone else to tell the i-love-yous to. Does it mean you never loved the first person? Okay, maybe you really did. But did you stop loving that person? Is Love that transient, here today and gone next week? Can your Love for both people exist concurrently? One has to be authentic and the other false, right?


I thought I had more questions, but those were the big two. Someone once said Love is not an emotion; it’s a matured decision; the emotion of Love does not last; it’s the decision to love that lasts.

This actually makes sense until you start poking holes into it. If Love is an emotion, like anger, joy, or happiness, then is it just a bunch of chemical reactions occurring in our brains? If Love is a decision, what makes it different from other decisions, like choosing a job or religion?

There are many stories out there, both fictional and factual, about how two people go against everything; their careers, religions, personalities, culture, and even their families because they love each other.

What makes them do this and risk everything? What is this thing called Love?


Tell me in the comment section.

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