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So I’ll just leave some bits here. For me the quote that started to conceptualize romantic love was “Love is that condition in which the happiness of another pe

So I’ll just leave some bits here. For me the quote that started to conceptualize romantic love was “Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own.” from Robert Heinlein. But really that’s not the whole story. Just like we have many different kinds of non-romantic love (kids, candy, outdoors, parents, friends, motorcycles, precision instruments, algorithms) we also experience many different kinds of romantic love. We often talk about “the love of your life” and “the one” as the ultimate version of romantic love. But it’s not an escalator: https://offescalator.com/what-escalator/ https://offescalator.com/what-escalator/. And if you follow this model of relationships, you quickly arrive at the concept of casual love: https://www.carsieblanton.com/blog/post/82149148832/casual-love https://www.carsieblanton.com/blog/post/82149148832/casual-l.... The idea that you can say “I love you” to a partner 2 weeks into a relationship and not place any expectations on it being actionable is very freeing. I have experienced it myself several times on both ends. It is a wonderful thing. Remember folks, you don’t have to love every partner you have. And if you love them, you don’t have to do anything about it. You can love for a week or a lifetime, you can love for a lifetime and never get serious. You can get serious but not married. The choices are yours and many options exist for all kinds different relationship types. Edit: if anyone wants to nerd out about non-monogamous/polyamorous relationships, I am happy to talk about it.

cecilpl2 8y ago
I knew you were poly as soon as you mentioned Heinlein as one of your biggest influences on your theory of romance. :) Love without expectations is a wonderful joyous thing. A couple songs my longest partner and I love are https://climbingpoetree.bandcamp.com/track/cant-help-but-fly-the-poly-song https://climbingpoetree.bandcamp.com/track/cant-help-but-fly... and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeGFu05xB-8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeGFu05xB-8
- IgorPartola 8y ago
  Heh. Heinlein wasn’t actually how I came into it, but because his writing was always in the back of my mind, it made it a lot easier to accept. I fell into it the way one falls into a puddle: by a series of mishaps. And those links/songs are excellent, thank you!
  - jelliclesfarm 8y ago
    I am glad someone bought up Heinlein. He has certainly been a very important influence in my life. I don’t like the label of ‘poly’ and I don’t understand the definition of ‘love’ as we know it in society..and I have a dim view of marriage as a social construct as I see how it can be regressive for women(I am female). That Heinlein quote is one of my favorites. I embrace it better as something that causes a tumble and release of brain chemicals in a certain synchronized way. I also wonder if entheogens can help human beings grasp the concept of love and guide them to be emotionally non violent(to themselves and to those they love) about it. Perhaps we will all love each other universally if someone added ‘shrooms in our tap water.(I was being facetious! Altho..it is more of an absurd seed for maybe a weird tales story contribution.)
    - IgorPartola 8y ago
      I kind of agree. I got into an argument with an ex once about how love is just brain chemistry. She didn’t like that because that made it not romantic. I think it makes it more romantic: out of basic biochemistry you get “this insane feeling!” I do think we would all be nicer to each other and ourselves if we didn’t strive to make our partners our “everything”. It isn’t the solution to all our problems but it is a solution to a problem that plagued many marriages/long term relationships. If it wasn’t, cheating and marriage counselors wouldn’t be as common as they are. I don’t really like labels in general (I prefer to use verbs than nouns if I use one), but poly is what I have been doing for about 7 years now. In addition I have realized that other forms of non-monogamy fit me as well. Love can be felt more or less in those than in poly.
      - ay 8y ago
        > love is just brain chemistry A great read about that is “a complete idiot’s guide to chemistry of love”, which gave some solid peer-reviewed confirmations to some of the trends I thought I was spotting. Quite much agree with the rest, not a lot to add :) - life is most beautiful in its diversity.
      - jelliclesfarm 8y ago
nsarafa 8y ago
Amazing food for thought! Thank you for the links
- IgorPartola 8y ago
  Of course. It’s amazing to me that we often look for already existing solutions to most of our problem in life and work, except when it comes to relationships. Most times others have already experienced what we are struggling with and have found good ways of making it work. This is why I nerd out about this stuff so much: there is a whole world of custom made relationships out there and some have books, studies, opinion pieces, etc.
  - kodz4 8y ago
    Read some Esther Perel.
    - IgorPartola 8y ago
      I have. Her stuff is pretty great, though I found Mating in Captivity a bit lacking on solutions to some of the cases she presented and also lacking a sort of overarching theory. But that’s just because how my brain operates: show a theory, then show examples of it being applied. Overall I found it super helpful to dissect certain types of relationships I’ve had and how to make existing ones a lot healthier.
majos 8y ago
Not trying to criticize here, but if "love" becomes freely applicable to all sorts of relationships of varying intimacies and understandings and bonds, doesn't that cheapen the word? Maybe the word doesn't need to be love -- but I think we need a word that expresses commitment. Perhaps not exclusively, but at least through-thick-and-thin support. Love without this sounds oxymoronic to me.
- IgorPartola 8y ago
  It depends on how you define it. It may sound like I am preaching “the one twue way”. I am not, I support those who define things differently. Having said that, the way I view it is that love is already used all over the place: “I love this game!” “I love chocolate cake!” “I love you, and your sister, and your little brother! I love my kids!” Why do we “allow” such usage without qualms, but when it comes to romantic love we only allow for it to mean “feelings you have toward one partner that you must then try to be with, and possibly marry and procreate”? Why can’t you enjoy someone’s company so much that you love them for just that moment, that hour, that year? And what about the whole mutual love dilemma? Have you ever witnessed a situation where two people are together and one is nervous to profess their love to the other because they might not say it back? And if they do, do they feel it the same way? That I think actually brings me to the most interesting way “love” is cheapened: when it is unexpressed. Say you are dating someone and by all accounts “it’s too early”. But you know you are in love. And maybe this is some puppy love because you are a teenager, but maybe you found the person that makes you feel just right in your late 40s after two divorces. You know what Love feels like for you and this is it, but a month in you cannot just profess it to your partner, can you? Well why not? If you tell them “I love you. I feel it deep in my belly, and in my fingertips when I touch you. This doesn’t mean I need to marry you, or we need to be together forever. It doesn’t even mean that you have to love me, now or ever. But I want you to know that you make me feel this way, and I am lucky that you are here with me right now.” How is that a cheapened version of “real love”?
  - wool_gather 8y ago
    I agree with what you've said, but your last paragraph also points to a simple, easy way forward (on the individual level): just describe the specific feelings without needing to roll them all up into that one loaded word. The specificity is probably better communication anyways. It also maybe frees the other person to express the same kind of appreciation.
shrimp_emoji 8y ago
I understand "casual love" poorly, but imagining myself engaging in it, I picture some chaotic asteroid collision chain reaction. The asteroids are people, and the collisions are the hook-ups. The hook-ups must be episodes of sex mixed with the psychological trauma of infatuation ("falling in love"?). It sounds horrifying and disruptive... But, to me, even sex in itself would be unappealing so casually; the only thing that can overcome the surface-level, material ugliness of other humans enough to make me want to have sex with them is long-term familiarity and mutual interest, and that sounds pretty anathema to "leave anytime, no expectations lol". :p So I guess the typical relationship escalator is what feels most natural to me. But then the poly model probably assures you a LOT more sex and relationships than mine, which requires meeting naturally and then building guarded, incremental trust, which, due to a mix of how our society is structured (there's HEAVY sexual partitioning of interests, hobbies, and careers) and my personality (I only engage with the most partitioned elements of society), ostensibly never happens for me. :D
- davidjnelson 8y ago
  > surface-level, material ugliness of other humans What does this mean? If it's just physical attraction, why not date more attractive people?
  - IgorPartola 8y ago
    Not the person you are asking but if you think about it, sex is weird, gross, and makes you very vulnerable. For some that is offset by it being wonderful and hot and sexy, while for others it takes more to go past the reality of it. That’s why the asexual spectrum is a thing: not everyone is down with getting down. And because as a society we expect sex and sexual attraction to be the norm, people on that spectrum may not always be out about it. Not saying the other poster is on that spectrum, just pointing out that many different brain configuration exist, with some going “all the sex” all the way to “sex? No thanks.”
    - davidjnelson 8y ago
      That makes sense. It seems about 1% of the population is asexual from some quick googling.

cecilpl2 8y ago

I knew you were poly as soon as you mentioned Heinlein as one of your biggest influences on your theory of romance. :) Love without expectations is a wonderful joyous thing. A couple songs my longest partner and I love are https://climbingpoetree.bandcamp.com/track/cant-help-but-fly-the-poly-song https://climbingpoetree.bandcamp.com/track/cant-help-but-fly... and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeGFu05xB-8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeGFu05xB-8

IgorPartola 8y ago
Heh. Heinlein wasn’t actually how I came into it, but because his writing was always in the back of my mind, it made it a lot easier to accept. I fell into it the way one falls into a puddle: by a series of mishaps. And those links/songs are excellent, thank you!
- jelliclesfarm 8y ago
  I am glad someone bought up Heinlein. He has certainly been a very important influence in my life. I don’t like the label of ‘poly’ and I don’t understand the definition of ‘love’ as we know it in society..and I have a dim view of marriage as a social construct as I see how it can be regressive for women(I am female). That Heinlein quote is one of my favorites. I embrace it better as something that causes a tumble and release of brain chemicals in a certain synchronized way. I also wonder if entheogens can help human beings grasp the concept of love and guide them to be emotionally non violent(to themselves and to those they love) about it. Perhaps we will all love each other universally if someone added ‘shrooms in our tap water.(I was being facetious! Altho..it is more of an absurd seed for maybe a weird tales story contribution.)
  - IgorPartola 8y ago
    I kind of agree. I got into an argument with an ex once about how love is just brain chemistry. She didn’t like that because that made it not romantic. I think it makes it more romantic: out of basic biochemistry you get “this insane feeling!” I do think we would all be nicer to each other and ourselves if we didn’t strive to make our partners our “everything”. It isn’t the solution to all our problems but it is a solution to a problem that plagued many marriages/long term relationships. If it wasn’t, cheating and marriage counselors wouldn’t be as common as they are. I don’t really like labels in general (I prefer to use verbs than nouns if I use one), but poly is what I have been doing for about 7 years now. In addition I have realized that other forms of non-monogamy fit me as well. Love can be felt more or less in those than in poly.
    - ay 8y ago
      > love is just brain chemistry A great read about that is “a complete idiot’s guide to chemistry of love”, which gave some solid peer-reviewed confirmations to some of the trends I thought I was spotting. Quite much agree with the rest, not a lot to add :) - life is most beautiful in its diversity.
    - jelliclesfarm 8y ago

nsarafa 8y ago

Amazing food for thought! Thank you for the links

IgorPartola 8y ago
Of course. It’s amazing to me that we often look for already existing solutions to most of our problem in life and work, except when it comes to relationships. Most times others have already experienced what we are struggling with and have found good ways of making it work. This is why I nerd out about this stuff so much: there is a whole world of custom made relationships out there and some have books, studies, opinion pieces, etc.
- kodz4 8y ago
  Read some Esther Perel.
  - IgorPartola 8y ago
    I have. Her stuff is pretty great, though I found Mating in Captivity a bit lacking on solutions to some of the cases she presented and also lacking a sort of overarching theory. But that’s just because how my brain operates: show a theory, then show examples of it being applied. Overall I found it super helpful to dissect certain types of relationships I’ve had and how to make existing ones a lot healthier.

majos 8y ago

Not trying to criticize here, but if "love" becomes freely applicable to all sorts of relationships of varying intimacies and understandings and bonds, doesn't that cheapen the word? Maybe the word doesn't need to be love -- but I think we need a word that expresses commitment. Perhaps not exclusively, but at least through-thick-and-thin support. Love without this sounds oxymoronic to me.

IgorPartola 8y ago
It depends on how you define it. It may sound like I am preaching “the one twue way”. I am not, I support those who define things differently. Having said that, the way I view it is that love is already used all over the place: “I love this game!” “I love chocolate cake!” “I love you, and your sister, and your little brother! I love my kids!” Why do we “allow” such usage without qualms, but when it comes to romantic love we only allow for it to mean “feelings you have toward one partner that you must then try to be with, and possibly marry and procreate”? Why can’t you enjoy someone’s company so much that you love them for just that moment, that hour, that year? And what about the whole mutual love dilemma? Have you ever witnessed a situation where two people are together and one is nervous to profess their love to the other because they might not say it back? And if they do, do they feel it the same way? That I think actually brings me to the most interesting way “love” is cheapened: when it is unexpressed. Say you are dating someone and by all accounts “it’s too early”. But you know you are in love. And maybe this is some puppy love because you are a teenager, but maybe you found the person that makes you feel just right in your late 40s after two divorces. You know what Love feels like for you and this is it, but a month in you cannot just profess it to your partner, can you? Well why not? If you tell them “I love you. I feel it deep in my belly, and in my fingertips when I touch you. This doesn’t mean I need to marry you, or we need to be together forever. It doesn’t even mean that you have to love me, now or ever. But I want you to know that you make me feel this way, and I am lucky that you are here with me right now.” How is that a cheapened version of “real love”?
- wool_gather 8y ago
  I agree with what you've said, but your last paragraph also points to a simple, easy way forward (on the individual level): just describe the specific feelings without needing to roll them all up into that one loaded word. The specificity is probably better communication anyways. It also maybe frees the other person to express the same kind of appreciation.

shrimp_emoji 8y ago

I understand "casual love" poorly, but imagining myself engaging in it, I picture some chaotic asteroid collision chain reaction. The asteroids are people, and the collisions are the hook-ups. The hook-ups must be episodes of sex mixed with the psychological trauma of infatuation ("falling in love"?). It sounds horrifying and disruptive... But, to me, even sex in itself would be unappealing so casually; the only thing that can overcome the surface-level, material ugliness of other humans enough to make me want to have sex with them is long-term familiarity and mutual interest, and that sounds pretty anathema to "leave anytime, no expectations lol". :p So I guess the typical relationship escalator is what feels most natural to me. But then the poly model probably assures you a LOT more sex and relationships than mine, which requires meeting naturally and then building guarded, incremental trust, which, due to a mix of how our society is structured (there's HEAVY sexual partitioning of interests, hobbies, and careers) and my personality (I only engage with the most partitioned elements of society), ostensibly never happens for me. :D

davidjnelson 8y ago
> surface-level, material ugliness of other humans What does this mean? If it's just physical attraction, why not date more attractive people?
- IgorPartola 8y ago
  Not the person you are asking but if you think about it, sex is weird, gross, and makes you very vulnerable. For some that is offset by it being wonderful and hot and sexy, while for others it takes more to go past the reality of it. That’s why the asexual spectrum is a thing: not everyone is down with getting down. And because as a society we expect sex and sexual attraction to be the norm, people on that spectrum may not always be out about it. Not saying the other poster is on that spectrum, just pointing out that many different brain configuration exist, with some going “all the sex” all the way to “sex? No thanks.”
  - davidjnelson 8y ago
    That makes sense. It seems about 1% of the population is asexual from some quick googling.