What is Love?
Oh baby, don’t hurt me
Don’t hurt me no more
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize that almost everything about dating, intimate relationships, and even marriage are distorted and messed up in today’s society. Some of these complications include unrealistic expectations that men have for women and vice versa, believing that there is a true and perfect match out there waiting for everyone like a fairytale, and chasing after people who are in no way whatsoever similar to you, just to name a few. Lately I’ve been very interested and curious about why we have such a screwed up misconception of what a good relationship is and who your perfect soul mate is. After pondering upon the thought, speaking to people, observing friends’ behaviors and experiences, and as well as considering my own experiences, I believe I have come to a very compelling argument that essentially erases the thought of “dating” we are all familiar with today. In order to fully understand my logic, we’ll have to start at the beginning: explaining the issues with dating and people.
What do men and women look for in each other? The obvious answer: looks. For most, if a man or woman isn’t “hot” enough, they won’t even consider dating them. There are many people I’m sure who would deny this claim, but what they don’t realize is that this usually isn’t a conscious decision. Nobody wants to date the ugly person. If the potential date in question actually does have decent looks, we move on to our next area of judgment: the body. In men, girls typically look for a buff guy who can defend themselves and usually the girl too, which makes sense, as well as being generally attractive. In women, boys typically look for women with big “personalities” (cough cough), nice assets, and a pretty face (usually caked with make-up). Obviously the previously mentioned sentences are just what the average man and woman look for, so these may not entirely apply for you. This creates a problem though. Men start to spend more time trying to appeal to the ladies, which usually involves going to the gym from sun up to sun down to look like the ripped guys in magazines and on TV. Women put on loads of make up and go on extreme and unhealthy diets, going so far as to not eat, to look like Playboy models. If dating is really related to love, why is everyone so much more concerned about the physical appearance of a potential date?
Everyone’s heard the phrase “nice guys finish last”, but is this even true? To understand this, we should take a dive into what’s known as the friend-zone. Despite contrary belief, the friend-zone is not the fault of the man or the woman, but both. The term “friend-zone” isn’t even a universal thing; this “strange” phenomenon is actually the name of quite a few situations and can be easily understood. The first one I will cover is when a person has a “crush” or feelings for a person that they hardly know, or know very well, that they have nothing in common with. I have experienced this many times, and no matter how many times it happens to you, one cannot usually tell they have nothing in common with the other person until they no longer have the crush on said person. If the person you have feelings for has nothing in common with you and they reject you, you are not sent to the friend-zone. You were rejected simply because the other person sees that you don’t have any similar interests. The second type of friend-zone is the one in which both the male and female in question are to blame for the friend-zone. This usually happens when a man has feelings for a woman who is already in a relationship, or has feelings for another person other than you. Although the roles of the gender can be reversed, they are ordinarily the man chasing after the woman who is already chasing after another man. The confusing part about this is that the man the woman has feelings for typically ignores the girl or is abusive to her, but she keeps coming back. I relate this to the relationship between a cat and a human. The cat is only interested in the human if the human wants nothing to do with it. Anyway, the first man will use the excuse “nice guys finish last” to describe their situation, of how the girl prefers the mean boy to the nice one. The problem doesn’t lie in being too nice. Since I have previously stated that dating seems to be more related to physicality as opposed to emotionality, we can conclude that the girl in question probably doesn’t have an interest in any emotional help, but would in fact prefer the emotional abuse from the other man because he gives her physical pleasure. Again, we see how this relationship appears to be defined more on physical pleasure and attraction instead of love. Hmm.
Chances are by just seeing the word “crush” right now, you are not only thinking about your own crush, but you are feeling those nice butterflies in your stomach. Tell me about your crush. Are they “funny, smart and cool”, with a “nice personality”? I would have never guessed. Crushes may seem like a childish feeling, but I don’t believe this is the case. It is simply called something else when you get older, going by terms such has “having feelings for” and “being in love” with someone. Make no mistake, it’s still a crush, a mysterious feeling that you have for someone for pretty much no reason at all, except maybe looks or things they do: physical attraction. But you love them, right?
Actually, you most likely don’t love them. At least, you don’t have any reason to. We are finally getting to “love”, a word that actually means something pretty different from what most people think it means. What love means is to care for somebody in a deep and intense way, so much that you are willing to give up your entire self for the sake of that person. What love doesn’t mean is a desire to be with a person in a relationship or to have a crush on someone. Loving somebody is not the same thing as being in love with somebody. Being in love with somebody in no way even relates to what real love is, being in love is a physical or sometimes (but hard to tell) emotional attachment to somebody. You most likely don’t love this person; you just say it.
I love a lot of people. I love my family, though it may not seem like it at times, and I may not feel like I do at times. I love my close friends in the same way, in a real, love way. I don’t want to date somebody because I love him or her, that’s just weird. If you were to date everyone you loved, it would seem weird and it would be weird. People don’t date for love, they date because they are “in love”, which is just grown-up words for having a crush or physical attraction to someone.
So this brings me to two conclusions:
Conclusion One: Dating and relationships are physical attraction, and most often have little to nothing to do with real love.
Because dating and relationships are physical desires, almost everything previously mentioned makes sense. The physical attraction explains why we have many misconceptions and unrealistic expectations for our potential partners, because these wrong expectations are related to physical appearance. This explains why women and men will prefer the physical pleasure of someone else over the emotional pleasure offered by the person they are rejecting, creating the friend-zone. This explains why we have crushes and develop feelings for people we hardly know, or in some cases, haven’t even seen before. Society believes love is physical first, emotional second, and does not require self-sacrifice. This is just all backwards.
Conclusion Two: The misuse and misunderstanding of the term “love” has led our society to believe that love is a physical thing.
Love is self-sacrifice, not a feeling of desire for another person. So many people will say, “I love you” to their boyfriend or girlfriend when in reality, they don’t really mean it. They think they mean it, but they really don’t at all. When that relationship falls apart in two weeks because their interests are drastically different (didn’t see that coming), and they both remember what they had said previous, “I love you”, they think it’s a lie. It’s not a lie, it was just misuse of the phrase. I think this is even a possible and reasonable explanation for increase in divorce rates: young couples get married at a young age, thinking they love each other, only to divorce soon after because neither actually love the other.
For my final thoughts on these conclusions, I want to address a few beliefs that are strengthened by both conclusions one and two. First of all though, I want to make it clear that physical connection is not a terrible thing. The terrible thing is that people believe love is only physical and has nothing to do with giving yourself up for another. Take long-distance relationships, for example. They always seem to be a terrible idea and never go well. I believe this results from lack of physical connection between the couple. If this love they experienced was real love and wasn’t a physical desire, the relationship would last; however, these relationships almost never last because of this. I also believe that cheating on someone inside of a relationship or marriage is a result of this physical attachment. If either of the partners actually loved each other, there would be no temptation to cheat on them. Cheating on someone is a physical desire. Finally, abstinence from sex until marriage sounds like a really dumb philosophy to most people; however, with these conclusions, it actually makes sense. While I am not completely against premarital sex, the practice of abstinence until marriage works. I would be willingly to bet that the couple who really love each other, who both practice this and do not have sex until they are married, would easily stay together for much longer than a couple who did not practice this. The reason being is that couple A develops a strong emotional dependence on one another, and put each other at the front of their lives, rather than physical pleasure. Couple B does not develop this, and their relationship is built upon this physical pleasure. This couple will come to a quick realization that they don’t actually love each other, and are much more likely split up in a stressful situation like financial stress than couple A is.
Thanks for taking the time to read my speculations. I’m not sure who will read this or how many people this will get around to, but it’s definitely worth a read and was worth the time it took me to compile all my thoughts into complete sentences that made sense. I urge you to consider all of these points made, and encourage criticism. This thesis is not perfect or complete at all, and can always use criticism.
Hunter Wyatt
Oh baby, don’t hurt me
Don’t hurt me no more
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize that almost everything about dating, intimate relationships, and even marriage are distorted and messed up in today’s society. Some of these complications include unrealistic expectations that men have for women and vice versa, believing that there is a true and perfect match out there waiting for everyone like a fairytale, and chasing after people who are in no way whatsoever similar to you, just to name a few. Lately I’ve been very interested and curious about why we have such a screwed up misconception of what a good relationship is and who your perfect soul mate is. After pondering upon the thought, speaking to people, observing friends’ behaviors and experiences, and as well as considering my own experiences, I believe I have come to a very compelling argument that essentially erases the thought of “dating” we are all familiar with today. In order to fully understand my logic, we’ll have to start at the beginning: explaining the issues with dating and people.
What do men and women look for in each other? The obvious answer: looks. For most, if a man or woman isn’t “hot” enough, they won’t even consider dating them. There are many people I’m sure who would deny this claim, but what they don’t realize is that this usually isn’t a conscious decision. Nobody wants to date the ugly person. If the potential date in question actually does have decent looks, we move on to our next area of judgment: the body. In men, girls typically look for a buff guy who can defend themselves and usually the girl too, which makes sense, as well as being generally attractive. In women, boys typically look for women with big “personalities” (cough cough), nice assets, and a pretty face (usually caked with make-up). Obviously the previously mentioned sentences are just what the average man and woman look for, so these may not entirely apply for you. This creates a problem though. Men start to spend more time trying to appeal to the ladies, which usually involves going to the gym from sun up to sun down to look like the ripped guys in magazines and on TV. Women put on loads of make up and go on extreme and unhealthy diets, going so far as to not eat, to look like Playboy models. If dating is really related to love, why is everyone so much more concerned about the physical appearance of a potential date?
Everyone’s heard the phrase “nice guys finish last”, but is this even true? To understand this, we should take a dive into what’s known as the friend-zone. Despite contrary belief, the friend-zone is not the fault of the man or the woman, but both. The term “friend-zone” isn’t even a universal thing; this “strange” phenomenon is actually the name of quite a few situations and can be easily understood. The first one I will cover is when a person has a “crush” or feelings for a person that they hardly know, or know very well, that they have nothing in common with. I have experienced this many times, and no matter how many times it happens to you, one cannot usually tell they have nothing in common with the other person until they no longer have the crush on said person. If the person you have feelings for has nothing in common with you and they reject you, you are not sent to the friend-zone. You were rejected simply because the other person sees that you don’t have any similar interests. The second type of friend-zone is the one in which both the male and female in question are to blame for the friend-zone. This usually happens when a man has feelings for a woman who is already in a relationship, or has feelings for another person other than you. Although the roles of the gender can be reversed, they are ordinarily the man chasing after the woman who is already chasing after another man. The confusing part about this is that the man the woman has feelings for typically ignores the girl or is abusive to her, but she keeps coming back. I relate this to the relationship between a cat and a human. The cat is only interested in the human if the human wants nothing to do with it. Anyway, the first man will use the excuse “nice guys finish last” to describe their situation, of how the girl prefers the mean boy to the nice one. The problem doesn’t lie in being too nice. Since I have previously stated that dating seems to be more related to physicality as opposed to emotionality, we can conclude that the girl in question probably doesn’t have an interest in any emotional help, but would in fact prefer the emotional abuse from the other man because he gives her physical pleasure. Again, we see how this relationship appears to be defined more on physical pleasure and attraction instead of love. Hmm.
Chances are by just seeing the word “crush” right now, you are not only thinking about your own crush, but you are feeling those nice butterflies in your stomach. Tell me about your crush. Are they “funny, smart and cool”, with a “nice personality”? I would have never guessed. Crushes may seem like a childish feeling, but I don’t believe this is the case. It is simply called something else when you get older, going by terms such has “having feelings for” and “being in love” with someone. Make no mistake, it’s still a crush, a mysterious feeling that you have for someone for pretty much no reason at all, except maybe looks or things they do: physical attraction. But you love them, right?
Actually, you most likely don’t love them. At least, you don’t have any reason to. We are finally getting to “love”, a word that actually means something pretty different from what most people think it means. What love means is to care for somebody in a deep and intense way, so much that you are willing to give up your entire self for the sake of that person. What love doesn’t mean is a desire to be with a person in a relationship or to have a crush on someone. Loving somebody is not the same thing as being in love with somebody. Being in love with somebody in no way even relates to what real love is, being in love is a physical or sometimes (but hard to tell) emotional attachment to somebody. You most likely don’t love this person; you just say it.
I love a lot of people. I love my family, though it may not seem like it at times, and I may not feel like I do at times. I love my close friends in the same way, in a real, love way. I don’t want to date somebody because I love him or her, that’s just weird. If you were to date everyone you loved, it would seem weird and it would be weird. People don’t date for love, they date because they are “in love”, which is just grown-up words for having a crush or physical attraction to someone.
So this brings me to two conclusions:
Conclusion One: Dating and relationships are physical attraction, and most often have little to nothing to do with real love.
Because dating and relationships are physical desires, almost everything previously mentioned makes sense. The physical attraction explains why we have many misconceptions and unrealistic expectations for our potential partners, because these wrong expectations are related to physical appearance. This explains why women and men will prefer the physical pleasure of someone else over the emotional pleasure offered by the person they are rejecting, creating the friend-zone. This explains why we have crushes and develop feelings for people we hardly know, or in some cases, haven’t even seen before. Society believes love is physical first, emotional second, and does not require self-sacrifice. This is just all backwards.
Conclusion Two: The misuse and misunderstanding of the term “love” has led our society to believe that love is a physical thing.
Love is self-sacrifice, not a feeling of desire for another person. So many people will say, “I love you” to their boyfriend or girlfriend when in reality, they don’t really mean it. They think they mean it, but they really don’t at all. When that relationship falls apart in two weeks because their interests are drastically different (didn’t see that coming), and they both remember what they had said previous, “I love you”, they think it’s a lie. It’s not a lie, it was just misuse of the phrase. I think this is even a possible and reasonable explanation for increase in divorce rates: young couples get married at a young age, thinking they love each other, only to divorce soon after because neither actually love the other.
For my final thoughts on these conclusions, I want to address a few beliefs that are strengthened by both conclusions one and two. First of all though, I want to make it clear that physical connection is not a terrible thing. The terrible thing is that people believe love is only physical and has nothing to do with giving yourself up for another. Take long-distance relationships, for example. They always seem to be a terrible idea and never go well. I believe this results from lack of physical connection between the couple. If this love they experienced was real love and wasn’t a physical desire, the relationship would last; however, these relationships almost never last because of this. I also believe that cheating on someone inside of a relationship or marriage is a result of this physical attachment. If either of the partners actually loved each other, there would be no temptation to cheat on them. Cheating on someone is a physical desire. Finally, abstinence from sex until marriage sounds like a really dumb philosophy to most people; however, with these conclusions, it actually makes sense. While I am not completely against premarital sex, the practice of abstinence until marriage works. I would be willingly to bet that the couple who really love each other, who both practice this and do not have sex until they are married, would easily stay together for much longer than a couple who did not practice this. The reason being is that couple A develops a strong emotional dependence on one another, and put each other at the front of their lives, rather than physical pleasure. Couple B does not develop this, and their relationship is built upon this physical pleasure. This couple will come to a quick realization that they don’t actually love each other, and are much more likely split up in a stressful situation like financial stress than couple A is.
Thanks for taking the time to read my speculations. I’m not sure who will read this or how many people this will get around to, but it’s definitely worth a read and was worth the time it took me to compile all my thoughts into complete sentences that made sense. I urge you to consider all of these points made, and encourage criticism. This thesis is not perfect or complete at all, and can always use criticism.
Hunter Wyatt
