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News & ArtsFriday, March 9, 2012
Savage Love SL Letter of the Day: Short & Sweet
Posted by Dan Savage on Fri, Mar 9, 2012 at 12:47 PM
1
It's real, but it's probably not what you think it is if you're the kind of person who writes in a mopey question like this to Savage Love.
6
Um. Okay. Is hate "real?"
If you answer yes to that and are still uncertain about the existence of love, I truly pity you.
If you say "no, hate doesn't exist either" then you have Aspergers.
Or are Commander Data.
If you answer yes to that and are still uncertain about the existence of love, I truly pity you.
If you say "no, hate doesn't exist either" then you have Aspergers.
Or are Commander Data.
13
Dan, the first thing I noticed about your response is that it is also an excellent answer to the question "Is the female orgasm real?".
16
Yes but romantic love flickers, and the rest is more like a working partnership. I think George Clooney has it right.
20
@3, why would your friends who used to be boys have special insight here? Oh.
Love can be real, but when asked like this never is. Love is something you MAKE, not something that flutters down out of the sky on you.
Love can be real, but when asked like this never is. Love is something you MAKE, not something that flutters down out of the sky on you.
21
The fun kind flickers, the rest is a working partnership. I think George Clooney has the right idea.
22
As the helpless romantic i am the fact you are asking that question makes me extremely sad. Of course love is real! When you find it you'll know, is it easy? Hell no! but it's worth fighting for more than anything else.
27
Hmm... Define "real" and "love". Both words have widely varying uses. Assuming a definition of "real" as in, "The English language is real," (as opposed to, "The chair in which I'm sitting is real.") and "love" as "a desire to make another person happy and well that is strong enough to motivate forgoing one's own happiness and wellness in order to effect the other's", then yes, obviously. Of course, the question is trivial if one actually defines the terms involved, and meaningless if one doesn't, so it's almost certainly intentional trolling...
29
Love is real, but to me love has always been as much, if not more, about your actions than your feelings. I think too many people mistake the feelings of lust, infatuation and obsession for love. But love is really the decisions we make every day, and is why I don't think you can really know love until all the intense, wild emotions that come up in a new relationship die down.
Love is what happens years down the road when you wake up for the countless time, look over at the person you have been sharing your life with, and say to yourself, "yes, I still choose to spend my life with this person". That's love, and it is a decision more than anything else. All the rest are just the factors that go into making that decision.
Love is what happens years down the road when you wake up for the countless time, look over at the person you have been sharing your life with, and say to yourself, "yes, I still choose to spend my life with this person". That's love, and it is a decision more than anything else. All the rest are just the factors that go into making that decision.
31
Love is a many-splendored thing. I'm sure of it. I'm not sure what kind of thing, and I'm not sure what a "splendor" is, but I'm as sure of it as I am that I made up that expression.
33
I'm assuming this person means romantic love (not parent-child, friends, etc.) .
When you are young, love can be easily confused with lust or infatuation. You don't have a lot of experience to contrast it with so you might assume "it's love!" And you get burned and wonder if you can know.
A couple of other comments have said what is true; you create love. It's not a zap from the sky to your heart.
Beyond creating love, you have to nurture it. You have to keep it at the top of your list or it will slowly dissolve. There's no "well, of course, I love you" to your partner.
You also have to expect that love evolves. You will not feel the same about love (or your partner) at 50 as you do at 30. And, life sometimes takes us down roads we don't ask to go and you have to be prepared for those challenges to your love.
But to have someone who knows you, cares about you, supports your personality AND your dreams and still can curl your toes - that's love.
Spoken from someone married for nearly 29 years (to the same person).
When you are young, love can be easily confused with lust or infatuation. You don't have a lot of experience to contrast it with so you might assume "it's love!" And you get burned and wonder if you can know.
A couple of other comments have said what is true; you create love. It's not a zap from the sky to your heart.
Beyond creating love, you have to nurture it. You have to keep it at the top of your list or it will slowly dissolve. There's no "well, of course, I love you" to your partner.
You also have to expect that love evolves. You will not feel the same about love (or your partner) at 50 as you do at 30. And, life sometimes takes us down roads we don't ask to go and you have to be prepared for those challenges to your love.
But to have someone who knows you, cares about you, supports your personality AND your dreams and still can curl your toes - that's love.
Spoken from someone married for nearly 29 years (to the same person).
34
@6, I realize that your comment wasn't malicious, but it was a bit ignorant.
I have Asperger's (or, since the diagnosis is getting folded into autism, I'm a high functioning autistic). So is my partner.
We both feel love and hate. Every bit as strongly as you (presumably) do.
We're just often bad at expressing them properly--or reading them properly in others. But if you take the time to get to know us, we can usually work through that.
Sorry for the rant.
I have Asperger's (or, since the diagnosis is getting folded into autism, I'm a high functioning autistic). So is my partner.
We both feel love and hate. Every bit as strongly as you (presumably) do.
We're just often bad at expressing them properly--or reading them properly in others. But if you take the time to get to know us, we can usually work through that.
Sorry for the rant.
36
In a chapter where he said there's no real reason to believe there's really such a thing as color (vs the validation of our experiences) Oliver Sacks paraphrased Goethe: optical illusion is optical truth. Or, as Bierce said: I think I think, therefore I think I am.
38
Part of me wants to say "No. There is only lust and emotional neediness. Now go back to sleep, sweetie."
39
Love is something that is made between people. It is a choice. You choose to love someone when they act unlovable. It lives and grows if you nurture it, and will die from negligence. Love's survivability is dependent on you and your beloveds willingness to compromise and endure the unloveliness of life and the unlovliness that resides within you both. I don't think it is immortal, but it can live beyond death in the memories of those who thought you a special treasure.
40
Of course love is real.
What other reason is there for the miserable bullshit and painful circumstance that people subject themselves to? I wasn't kidding when I wrote about telling my kids to explore being "in like". Love is an overwhelming experience (potentially) when you're young, and being nice doesn't have to be a part of the entry fee.
OTOH, falling in love with someone (my wife) again and again, over the course of decades, defines a big part of my life. I have been incredibly lucky (and I tell myself this again and again and again) to find what I have, and many times I've woken in terror at it's loss. Love is fulfilling, or overwhelming. Love comes in big chunks, and the little intimacies shared at night and in the harsh exposure of daylight.
If love isn't real, then what am I?
Peace.
What other reason is there for the miserable bullshit and painful circumstance that people subject themselves to? I wasn't kidding when I wrote about telling my kids to explore being "in like". Love is an overwhelming experience (potentially) when you're young, and being nice doesn't have to be a part of the entry fee.
OTOH, falling in love with someone (my wife) again and again, over the course of decades, defines a big part of my life. I have been incredibly lucky (and I tell myself this again and again and again) to find what I have, and many times I've woken in terror at it's loss. Love is fulfilling, or overwhelming. Love comes in big chunks, and the little intimacies shared at night and in the harsh exposure of daylight.
If love isn't real, then what am I?
Peace.
41
yes but it is not static....I've been with the same partner for 25 years, and I am still figuring out what love is all about - good luck!
42
@34 No worries and don't be sorry. I did not mean to offend. I will look for a different turn of phrase next time.
43
Love is all there is. I mean that quite literally. It courses through our veins, and through every plant, animal and star. It is the beginning and the end of the universe. It is something we can tap into, but never own. And if you have it you are the luckiest person alive. Nurture and hold o to love like your life depends on it, because it does. And do not hoard it -- give it away with every opportunity, and it will come back to tou in untold amounts. Always keep love at the top of your list, and everything else will fall into place.
44
You can't hurry love. You'll just have to wait. Love don't come easy. It's a game of give and take.
45
One in the spirit of Savage Love:
"Love is not the dying moan of a distant violin; it's the triumphant twang of a bedspring."
-- S.J. Perelman
"Love is not the dying moan of a distant violin; it's the triumphant twang of a bedspring."
-- S.J. Perelman
50
@4, @30 & @41 have it. Particularly @41. It starts with oxytocin-induced (brain chemistry) crazy, which is the drug-induced stupor needed to get a person to spend enough time with another person to fall in love in a deeper way. Don't expect that brain chemistry stuff to last.
53
Love is like a door that opens in you and you didn't know was there, a door through which you see a new universe present in human form. Love is a decision to explore this new universe in human form that seems to enticing and attractive, and to allow it to explore us as the universe we also are. For as long as the universe(s) last.
No, actually, love is not that. Not just that. It's a changing thing that looks different every time you think you have it. Married in MA above ('falling in love again and again with my wife'); Kim in Portland ('it survives if you nurture it, it dies if you neglect it'); Fortunate ('love is a decision'); westello ('you create love'). Indeed.
No, actually, love is not that. Not just that. It's a changing thing that looks different every time you think you have it. Married in MA above ('falling in love again and again with my wife'); Kim in Portland ('it survives if you nurture it, it dies if you neglect it'); Fortunate ('love is a decision'); westello ('you create love'). Indeed.
55
Love
Is just a simple thought
A little bit the worse for wear
Like a thief who got
Caught
Hope
Is just a thing you bought
It's just another safe white lie
That everybody got
Taught
—Kristian Hoffman
Is just a simple thought
A little bit the worse for wear
Like a thief who got
Caught
Hope
Is just a thing you bought
It's just another safe white lie
That everybody got
Taught
—Kristian Hoffman
57
Love is real & wonderful, but looking for it shouldn't define us utterly. I have single pals who are open to love, but who also have rich lives on their own. They have love of friends, family & love of themselves, their own company & pursuits. I sometimes feel frustrated when people who have a solo household are judged somehow as lesser or wanting. One should have a healthy love of self, to which adding love of a special someone would be great, but not the "you complete me" BS of fairytales & rom-coms.
When I'm single, like anyone else, I hate the breakup part but then revel fully in being single, in love with life & self & opportunities. When encoupled (or triad'd, whatever), I live that fully too, & enjoy the adventures that brings.
Being open to love with another, & the compromises & communication to sustain it over time = great. (& I agree w/ what Kim in Portland said about that.) But grabbing life hard & living the hell out of it is just as pure & meaningful, a love of life itself.
When I'm single, like anyone else, I hate the breakup part but then revel fully in being single, in love with life & self & opportunities. When encoupled (or triad'd, whatever), I live that fully too, & enjoy the adventures that brings.
Being open to love with another, & the compromises & communication to sustain it over time = great. (& I agree w/ what Kim in Portland said about that.) But grabbing life hard & living the hell out of it is just as pure & meaningful, a love of life itself.
58
@57 Eva,
Yes, you're correct. The opposite of Love is indifference. A stale, bleak life as a couple* is never going to be better than a vibrant one as a single, no matter what we're told. Someone that doesn't find a partner is no less, or more, of a person.
*Unless that is the life they wholeheartedly prefer. A dynamic, evolving relationship between asexuals is a good thing if that is their preference. Just because we don't want that kind of life doesn't automatically render someone else's choice moot.
Peace.
Yes, you're correct. The opposite of Love is indifference. A stale, bleak life as a couple* is never going to be better than a vibrant one as a single, no matter what we're told. Someone that doesn't find a partner is no less, or more, of a person.
*Unless that is the life they wholeheartedly prefer. A dynamic, evolving relationship between asexuals is a good thing if that is their preference. Just because we don't want that kind of life doesn't automatically render someone else's choice moot.
Peace.
61
Love hurts. Love scars. Love wounds and mars any heart not tough or strong enough to take a lot of pain.
But it's sometimes the main thing that makes life worth living. ;-)
But it's sometimes the main thing that makes life worth living. ;-)
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