Goal of the day: 532 words. Written: 659.
If you are reading this text, it means that I liked what I wrote well enough, or that I think you can provide the answers and information I'm looking for to the questions raised in the text.
Love.
In our last letter, we tried to find out what this is. We tried to find a logical answer. And we came up with our own answer.
However…
How is love different from falling in love?
How is falling in love different from falling in love?
How is admiration different from passion?
And how is passion different from love?
Love is a complex emotion (or perhaps better described as a feeling - pain is not an emotion, it is just a feeling) that everyone craves. People who don't crave love, well, who say they don't crave it, are lying. Otherwise it is impossible.
Why?
Well... I don't know. I just feel like - after all, it should be the case that everybody wants love, shouldn't it be otherwise? After all, it's such a nice feeling that it's even nicer than the one we get when we eat the most delicious ice-cream or grandma's baked kugel. More pleasurable than sleep and more pleasurable than just sex.
...Although you may object. If you think otherwise, tell me, I'm interested.
Love. Let's look at the times when I have been in love and try to find out when this feeling was born in me. I can't empathise with other people's bodies, so forgive me - this will be completely subjective. But I guess I can only speak for myself, because I am a fairly average member of the human tribe.
(Or maybe I'm not, but again - tell me if you are.)
The girls Daniel fell in love with
Forgive me, because I don't know if I really loved them. That's what I'm saying, just "fell in love". Here is what happened.
First. Gerda.
I met her at a friend's birthday party. She was an interesting girl and I loved talking to her and chatting in internet language - she was the only one who understood me at the time. I talked to her a lot on Skype (aha, remember when this was important?), we even wrote a novel, taking turns writing the characters' actions.
She wasn't my girlfriend. But I was in love with her when I was almost 19.
One night after an event, at a bus stop waiting for a bus, I tentatively suggested that we go to the theatre together. She said she wanted to stay friends. I don't remember how we said goodbye after that.
Then I found out that she wasn't interested in me at all, and she was infatuated with my best friend. Which ruined the admiration somewhat.
Then, for about a month, I was annoyed and looked for ways to get out of the friend zone. That's how I got into the world of dating and self-esteem information, and started moving away from the internet and video games.
Second. Laima.
I met her on Facebook, just like I met Gerda. Laimon, it turns out, I had already seen a few months earlier, under friends' discussions. She was also a girl who lived on the internet and who liked the Nyan Cat meme and others like it.
She became my girlfriend. The first one I kissed at the age of 19.
I probably stayed with Laimona for about 3-4 months, mainly because it was something new! Ugh! The very beginning! Then we broke up when I got fed up and said enough is enough. I still don't understand why I did that.
Third. Tilda.
She was the first one to have adventures in bed. Hm. They didn't last long.
Fourth. Mileta.
This was the longest relationship. And she's probably the first one you could really say I loved. Not in a fervent way, but completely. Caringly.
I read recently Brenda Schaeffer's book "What is it - love or addiction?" and in this book, the author (a real psychologist, by the way, not some Vedic and NLP-loving lunatic) describes the differences between demanding "love" and giving it.
With Mileta, I was happy to give her all of me - as much as I had.
Then we broke up because Mileta had slept with another guy and, after confessing, decided that it was better to end the relationship. Maybe a little reluctantly, but I agreed - after all, I can't hold her under duress.
Fifth... And others...
Which I admired even then not so much. All the things I was looking for, the divorce from Mileta, two years of running after a more interesting skirt.
Not very pleasant relationships. I don't remember many of them - they were just so short.
And then the question is, when was the relationship at its best?
When did I experience true love?
And what is that love?
It would seem to be giving. Self-giving. After all, it was the longest relationship ever, and maybe the most enjoyable until the end.
But won't you be giving too much of yourself away? If you do, won't you become the other person's petulant child, whom you don't want to love at all? Is sharing really the answer?
...Perhaps sharingsis?
What do you think? What are your answers and thoughts on the most pleasant feeling we can have?
Puzzled,
Daniel