Love and Being IN Love.

October 26, 2007, 12:52 AM

Indeed, it's another soppy thread.

Recent events have led me to question with my friends; is there a difference between loving someone and being IN love with someone?

The "loving someone" I'm referring to is the kind that comes long after the crush you have on someone. You say "I love you" to people all of the time, even to the people you like, but you can say that without suggesting it's the "binding" kind of love - the one where it's the first time you've said it to each other; the one that leads to marriage and whatnot.

Do you think there's a difference between loving and being in love with someone? I'm excluding family from this, as that brings unconditional love as a factor into the question and I'd rather not detract away from the main point.

If there is a difference, what do you call that stage?

October 26, 2007, 8:17 AM

Yeah i think there is a diffrence. I would call it, the personality change. You try to change your personality to suit who you love. And vice-versa.

October 26, 2007, 4:17 PM

I've thought there was a difference for some time now.

Love is used loosely. "I love you" is simply used to show some kind of affection, be it to a boyfriend/girlfriend, friend or family member. We can say this to anyone, without it meaning we even care for them. I've seen people say "I love you!" simply because someone has given them a chocolate bar. Haha.

Being in love implies something far more. I feel being in love is more like true love. A love that's exclusively between two people who find ultimate happiness together. A love that goes beyond the boundaries of a normal teenage relationship and reaches something deeper and purer.

It's possible to love someone after only knowing them for a short time, but I don't think it's possible to be in love with someone. To be in love you have to build on a relationship, to learn about the deepest and darkest parts of a person's personality, and to see past their flaws. It's not about loving one part of a person and detesting the other. It's about accepting them as a whole, as they are and for who they are, not what they appear to be or what they could be.

Sadly, I don't think many people find someone they're in love with. People marry for love, security, friendship... People marry because they share similar interests or feel happy together and can imagine feeling content. However, that's not what being in love is about. Sure, being in love includes all of that, but it is so much more. I've never been in love so I can't say exactly what, just that it's more than what the average person seeks in life.

October 26, 2007, 6:04 PM

It was funny, because 3 years ago I would have told you I knew what being in love was, because the feeling that I had was the closest feeling to love I had ever felt. At that time I did love my boyfriend, but after we broke up and I got together with "Tim" I knew that I never knew what being in love was before that. It's a really hard feeling to explain.... It's not just the whole butterflies and wanting to see them all the time, because you get that in the initial attraction. It's that plus so much more. You will never know it, till you have felt it, and I think that everyone will eventually feel it in their lifetime. Being in love makes you crazy. You do things that you would never do in a realationship with most anyone else. You find yourself almost being ridiculous and silly. And sometimes you do things that you don't necessaily want to do. That's all I can really say it is.

October 26, 2007, 10:29 PM

Being "in love" is usually referring to romantic love, "love" is referring to general compassion. If your friend has been asking for gum for the past 5 hours and you finally decide to give her a piece, then if she says "Thank god, I love you!", it can usually pass off as a compliment. If she says, "Wow, I think I'm in love with you!", it's a little bit creepy.

October 26, 2007, 10:58 PM

Being "in love" would be considered a passion. It could lead to the person not seeing certain things about the other that could be bad or wrong for them. I have seen people do very stupid things because they are "in love". In many cases it is one sided.

Loving somebody could mean that you care about the person. It does not have to be romantic. Usually a good marriage is based on a good friendship verses being in love with one another. Love based on passion usually does not work out. Of course, you are usually in love as well. But you are also great friends. You know the other's faults and accept them knowing your faults.

November 6, 2007, 3:04 PM

It is, of course, a matter of semantics really. In other languages, there are many forms of love. For example, I love my wife. I love my best friend Steve. Different meanings of the word. My wife is a romantic love whereas my friend Steve is a friend's love. In love is a term many people use to distinguish romantic love from the rest. In reality, being in love is merely the state of loving someone.

November 8, 2007, 2:48 AM

Yeah theres defo a difference, I know I loved my ex but I was not IN love with him.....I think it became a platonic love. Both feel different. When you're in love you just want to live and breath the other person, you never want to be apart. Someone that I love is someone I care very deeply for like someone I may have been with for a long time or a very good friend I guess...

November 15, 2007, 2:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Riku

Do you think there's a difference between loving and being in love with someone?

If there is a difference, what do you call that stage?

I'm guessing it's to do with hormones.
Like, you can love someone the way that I love you (

) but I'm not IN love with you (sorry to disappoint ;D) because there are no hormones etc.
And then there is the kind of love that makes you want to scream it out and tell everyone, but I don't think that's love, just hormones making you go all crazy and obsessed.

I think there's only one type of love, when you truly would do anything for a person and trust them fully like I do with my friends, and then you can get love + hormones which is what most people call being IN love with someone..

If taht makes any sense?

December 5, 2007, 2:47 AM

Not to sound like an asshole or anything, but...

Something is strange about the original question at hand. First you explain what the difference is (in your own opinion) between "loving someone" and being "IN love with someone" and then go on to ask if we believe there is a difference. What exactly are you asking here? Of course, by your own definitions, there is a difference, so why ask?

Unless of course you are referring to the grammatical differences... but I just don't see you as the kind of guy to post a thread like this and be implying that grammar is the issue at hand.

EDIT: Perhaps I should explain a little further...

A debate is started by presenting an issue, and then by defining the exact issue at hand as to remove any sort of misinterpretation of the original idea and to maximize on topic discussion. Therefore, when you defined the differences between being "IN love" and "loving someone", you were in fact just defining the premise of the debate in order to make everyone understand the core of the idea at hand. Then you finalized the issue by asking the specific question: Do YOU think there's a difference, with obvious emphasis on YOU (or else you are simply asking people if theres a difference between apples and oranges based on the definitions provided by Websters Dictionary).

Ultimately, you haven't really asked a viable question.

...I guess what I'm saying is: "Did you mean to write: 'How would you define the difference between "loving someone" and being "IN love with someone".'?".