4 ms·

It's not unconditional if it's also lustful.

lurquer 7y ago
Ha. I'll leave it to you to parse adjectives. All I'm saying to the delightfully Spock-ian logical HN poster is that all the cynicsm and scientific Mumbo-jumbo about endorphines and the like vanish upon laying eyes on your soul-mate. I could never convince you of true love. I don't mean to even try. I hope you have the distinct pleasure and privilege of discovering it for yourself.
- tokenpreneur 7y ago
  The GP was making a distinction regarding the application of the quality of unconditional to romantic love. At the minimum, if there's lust involved, it's by definition not unconditional. You snarkily leave me to parsing adjectives all the while triumphing your definition of true love over others. One can accept the notion of 'true (romantic) love' but pretending its unconditional is lying about facts. I'd also argue that even parental love and the love for the offspring is not unconditional either: you love them because they are your parents, or your children. We can participate in the varieties of the human experience, but let's not lose sight of the truth or muddle the meaning of words. I'm of the opinion that completely unconditional love can only occur in relation to an other from whom one stands to gain absolutely nothing.
  - mistermann 7y ago
    > If there's lust involved, it's by definition not unconditional Can you elaborate on this?
    - tokenpreneur 7y ago
      Lust is conditioned by pleasurable sensory inputs and the prospect (or consummation, if you're lucky) of the sexual encounter.
      - mistermann 7y ago
        Right, but how is that necessarily a condition (pre-requisite) for love?
        tokenpreneur 7y ago
        You can't call a (romantic) love unconditional, if there's lust involved. The lust conditions the (romantic) love. This is not the same as saying lust is a necessary condition for love (but is usually a factor in romantic love), which I have not said nor implied.
        mistermann 7y ago
        Why must lust necessarily impose conditions/pre-requisites on unconditional love? This is the part I don't understand.
        tokenpreneur 7y ago
        We're talking about romantic love where lust is a dominant factor, if there was no sexual attraction bringing the two parties together, then how could there have been any subsequent love to arise? The sexual attraction (lust) is a condition that caused the love to sprout in the first place. I'm not saying there aren't other possible ways for people to get together, but we're specifically talking about cases where people get together because they're attracted to each other (the condition). I think what you're wanting to say is that a conditioned love (for example, one that starts with lust) can become an unconditioned love. But I don't think you can separate the cause and effect like that, because the memories, experiences and identity shared between the parties is still going to rest as a factor for them staying together for a "unconditional" love to take place, and hence its not truly unconditional: it's based on something.
        mistermann 7y ago
        > We're talking about romantic love where lust is a dominant factor Oh, I thought we were talking about unconditional love in general. > if there was no sexual attraction bringing the two parties together, then how could there have been any subsequent love to arise? Afaik sexual attraction isn't a pre-requisite for love in general, let alone unconditional love. All this considered, I'm still unclear on why unconditional love and lust cannot co-exist. I can see how uni-directional/unfulfilled/non-reciprocal lust could in some cases diminish the love felt by one party (this would be a case where it isn't isn't actually unconditional love), but the part I don't understand is that unfulfilled lust must do this, even if the lust is strong.
  - sosborn 7y ago
    > from whom one stands to gain absolutely nothing Some people look at unconditional love as something where both parties gain absolutely everything.
  - DoreenMichele 7y ago
    I'd also argue that even parental love and the love for the offspring is not unconditional either: you love them because they are your parents, or your children. Yes. An expectation of unconditional love is often abusive. It often boils down to expecting slavery and servitude from another person. I was a full-time mom for nearly two decades. A lot of people seem to expect unconditional motherly love from me while they don't give a rat's ass about my welfare or do a fucking thing for me. My actual biological children treat me very well. I think of actual love as symbiotic. It enhances the lived of both parties. This is a highly conditional definition.
    - tokenpreneur 7y ago
      > An expectation of unconditional love is often abusive. It often boils down to expecting slavery and servitude from another person. I agree. I realized this, when my wife told me she would love me unconditionally, and I later pressed her to fulfill that oath in the midst of me behaving unreasonably towards her. That's not love, that's subjection. What she meant by unconditional love is that she'd love me even if I'm sick and poor, and I'd rather she'd love me then than when I'm being a tyrant.
      - DoreenMichele 7y ago
        My last serious boyfriend was from an older middle eastern culture. In his view, setting a high bar for leaving a person's life intact, even if it means letting them go and walking away, is merely friendship, not love. I'm not at all impressed with the high percentage of people who promise to love each other forever when they take marriage vows, then seek to vindictively tear each other part during the divorce. My divorce was amicable.
  - lurquer 7y ago
    Didn't mean to be snarky. Your post below regarding your wife and her definition of unconditional evidences great self-awareness on your part; namely, acknowledging when you were being unreasonable. I'm not that great at a parsing the differences in meaning between all the different types of emotion-laden words. Not my forte. That is, I can read books and whatnot about the 'five different love languages' and stuff like that, and it just doesn't compute. Maybe I'm the one who is Spock-Ian. But, at the end of the day, all I know is I saw this chick once and utterly fell head-over-head in love and it hasn't worn off or diminished in any respect... it just gets better and better each and every day. Maybe I'm unique. I don't know. Or, maybe SHE's unique. Like I said, it's embarrassing how ridiculously blessed in this regard I am. I just perceived, from reading the comments, that behind all the analytical profundities, there is a sad hoplelessness lurking whereby some posters have resigned themselves to the dismal idea that 'True Love' ain't real. Well, I'm just here to say they're wrong. Thank god. They are utterly wrong. And thats all I have to say about that.
noonespecial 7y ago
He forgot to mention paradoxical. Which it so is.

Ha. I'll leave it to you to parse adjectives. All I'm saying to the delightfully Spock-ian logical HN poster is that all the cynicsm and scientific Mumbo-jumbo about endorphines and the like vanish upon laying eyes on your soul-mate. I could never convince you of true love. I don't mean to even try. I hope you have the distinct pleasure and privilege of discovering it for yourself.

tokenpreneur 7y ago
The GP was making a distinction regarding the application of the quality of unconditional to romantic love. At the minimum, if there's lust involved, it's by definition not unconditional. You snarkily leave me to parsing adjectives all the while triumphing your definition of true love over others. One can accept the notion of 'true (romantic) love' but pretending its unconditional is lying about facts. I'd also argue that even parental love and the love for the offspring is not unconditional either: you love them because they are your parents, or your children. We can participate in the varieties of the human experience, but let's not lose sight of the truth or muddle the meaning of words. I'm of the opinion that completely unconditional love can only occur in relation to an other from whom one stands to gain absolutely nothing.
- mistermann 7y ago
  > If there's lust involved, it's by definition not unconditional Can you elaborate on this?
  - tokenpreneur 7y ago
    Lust is conditioned by pleasurable sensory inputs and the prospect (or consummation, if you're lucky) of the sexual encounter.
    - mistermann 7y ago
      Right, but how is that necessarily a condition (pre-requisite) for love?
      - tokenpreneur 7y ago
        You can't call a (romantic) love unconditional, if there's lust involved. The lust conditions the (romantic) love. This is not the same as saying lust is a necessary condition for love (but is usually a factor in romantic love), which I have not said nor implied.
        mistermann 7y ago
        Why must lust necessarily impose conditions/pre-requisites on unconditional love? This is the part I don't understand.
        tokenpreneur 7y ago
        We're talking about romantic love where lust is a dominant factor, if there was no sexual attraction bringing the two parties together, then how could there have been any subsequent love to arise? The sexual attraction (lust) is a condition that caused the love to sprout in the first place. I'm not saying there aren't other possible ways for people to get together, but we're specifically talking about cases where people get together because they're attracted to each other (the condition). I think what you're wanting to say is that a conditioned love (for example, one that starts with lust) can become an unconditioned love. But I don't think you can separate the cause and effect like that, because the memories, experiences and identity shared between the parties is still going to rest as a factor for them staying together for a "unconditional" love to take place, and hence its not truly unconditional: it's based on something.
        mistermann 7y ago
        > We're talking about romantic love where lust is a dominant factor Oh, I thought we were talking about unconditional love in general. > if there was no sexual attraction bringing the two parties together, then how could there have been any subsequent love to arise? Afaik sexual attraction isn't a pre-requisite for love in general, let alone unconditional love. All this considered, I'm still unclear on why unconditional love and lust cannot co-exist. I can see how uni-directional/unfulfilled/non-reciprocal lust could in some cases diminish the love felt by one party (this would be a case where it isn't isn't actually unconditional love), but the part I don't understand is that unfulfilled lust must do this, even if the lust is strong.
- sosborn 7y ago
  > from whom one stands to gain absolutely nothing Some people look at unconditional love as something where both parties gain absolutely everything.
- DoreenMichele 7y ago
  I'd also argue that even parental love and the love for the offspring is not unconditional either: you love them because they are your parents, or your children. Yes. An expectation of unconditional love is often abusive. It often boils down to expecting slavery and servitude from another person. I was a full-time mom for nearly two decades. A lot of people seem to expect unconditional motherly love from me while they don't give a rat's ass about my welfare or do a fucking thing for me. My actual biological children treat me very well. I think of actual love as symbiotic. It enhances the lived of both parties. This is a highly conditional definition.
  - tokenpreneur 7y ago
    > An expectation of unconditional love is often abusive. It often boils down to expecting slavery and servitude from another person. I agree. I realized this, when my wife told me she would love me unconditionally, and I later pressed her to fulfill that oath in the midst of me behaving unreasonably towards her. That's not love, that's subjection. What she meant by unconditional love is that she'd love me even if I'm sick and poor, and I'd rather she'd love me then than when I'm being a tyrant.
    - DoreenMichele 7y ago
      My last serious boyfriend was from an older middle eastern culture. In his view, setting a high bar for leaving a person's life intact, even if it means letting them go and walking away, is merely friendship, not love. I'm not at all impressed with the high percentage of people who promise to love each other forever when they take marriage vows, then seek to vindictively tear each other part during the divorce. My divorce was amicable.
- lurquer 7y ago
  Didn't mean to be snarky. Your post below regarding your wife and her definition of unconditional evidences great self-awareness on your part; namely, acknowledging when you were being unreasonable. I'm not that great at a parsing the differences in meaning between all the different types of emotion-laden words. Not my forte. That is, I can read books and whatnot about the 'five different love languages' and stuff like that, and it just doesn't compute. Maybe I'm the one who is Spock-Ian. But, at the end of the day, all I know is I saw this chick once and utterly fell head-over-head in love and it hasn't worn off or diminished in any respect... it just gets better and better each and every day. Maybe I'm unique. I don't know. Or, maybe SHE's unique. Like I said, it's embarrassing how ridiculously blessed in this regard I am. I just perceived, from reading the comments, that behind all the analytical profundities, there is a sad hoplelessness lurking whereby some posters have resigned themselves to the dismal idea that 'True Love' ain't real. Well, I'm just here to say they're wrong. Thank god. They are utterly wrong. And thats all I have to say about that.

noonespecial 7y ago

He forgot to mention paradoxical. Which it so is.