Conference turris::womannotes-v3

    re: .0
    
    I like that.  But implementing it is kind of tough.  It's like there's
    "normal love", full of confusion and periods of insecurity sometimes
    when communication gets snarled, and then there's "love for the
    advanced soul" (an admirable aim, but difficult to attain) as entailed
    in .0.  
    
    it's beautifully phrased though....
    
    -Jody
    

    I was trying to figure out whether I wanted to get married (in the
    abstract; if I did, I knew I wanted to marry Bob). I remember
    discussing it with Nina, a friend.  I said, 'when you meet someone new,
    there's that excitement, the special feeling of discovering the new
    person.  If I get married, I'll never have that feeling again.'
    
    Nina answered, "Not with different people."
    
    How'd she get so smart? She was only 19!  But she was right.

    What about glands which take root and grow?
    
    Ray
    
    P.S. - Guess I've always been infatuated, 'cause love sure has an
    element of sexual excitement to me!  As for love never leading to
    "things you'll regret later," time to survey the divorcees, I guess...

    Doesn't all love relationships start with either infatuation or
    friendship?  I hear alot you must be friends first.  But that 
    is not always the way people meet.  Sometimes theres that magic spark
    and off you go.  Sometimes its just burns out IE:  infatuation and
    then sometimes it grows into love and "friendship".  You can have both
    the burning passion and the warmth of friendship.  Its called maturity.
    
    just my thoughts

    
    false dichotomy
    

    re .6, what is?
    
    Lorna
    

    
    the topic under discussion ;^)
    

Re: -1 That friendship and infatuation can't both happen. I want it all. I want
friend that fills me with desire and fire. I want quick passion and long burning
Give me someone who excites me and let us work out the friendship. 

I want to be like the poem by Emily Dickinson (though she may have been refering
to something else I read this as passion)

		Wild nights! Wild nights!
		Were I with thee
		Wild nights would be our luxury

			...

		Rowing in Eden
		Ah the sea,
		That I might moor, tonight, in thee

    re .8, you just wanted to make me look up dichotomy in the dictionary. 
    I wanted you to tell me what it means so I wouldn't have to
    bother.  Brat.  :-)
    
    Lorna
    

    Love exists when you care as much about the other person's well being
    as you do your own.
    
    Mike
    

    I always believed that one can be only infatuated with someone for a
    short time, say 2 weeks. Can there be a long term relationship based
    solely on infatuation, not love?
    
    caroline
    

> Can there be a long term relationship based solely on infatuation, not love?

Yes, there certainly can... depending on your definition of infatuation. But
I've only seen it happen when BOTH parterns were infatuated with each other and
realized and admitted it. Pretty rare.

	-- Charles

    Someone once told me "Love is _not_ blind, love is eyes-wide-open.
    Infatuation is blind." Learning the truth of that was painful. If
    you find yourself 'overlooking' a lot you're more likely infatuated
    than 'in love'.

    There are thousands of people who marry "infatuated" only, and the high
    rate of divorce and separations corraborate that infatuation is a
    short-lived emotion...

    re .12 & .16, yes, infatuation is short-lived but it can last longer
    than two weeks.  I once lived with a man who was infatuated with me for
    exactly a year and a half.  After that time, he lost all interest in me
    and a year later became infatuated with someone else.  He has spent his
    entire adult life having a series of 1 to 2 yr. infatuations with
    women.  Unfortunately, most, if not all, of these women were actually in
    love with him (until they smartened up).
    
    Lorna
    

    
    I suspect that maybe "long term infatuation" is what some would
    call "sexual co-dependancy"....
    
    'gail

    .18... well said!
    
    Infatuation is not necesarity a 2-week fling, could be a 2-week, could
    be a 2-year fling, but hardly longer... and the longer period falls
    more into, as explained in .18, "sexual co-dependency" men know... how
    to behave.

    
    re: infatuation is not necessarily a two week fling
    
    So true.  My latest infatuation lasted three weeks.
    
    Carla
    

I think of three aspects as opposed to the two in the base note.

Lust- a purely physical gland to gland attraction. Physically based.
Id oriented.

Infatuation- being enamored with the *image* of someone. Mentally 
based (though the hormones kick in also). Ego oriented.

Love- being enamored with the reality of someone. Emotionally based
(soul to soul, though again, hormones kick in). Superego oriented.

Lust lasts for the moment. (or a bit longer, hopefully :^))
It's easily satisfied (given a willing partner).

Infatuation involves the possibility (probability?) of self-deception.
Pedastels come into play. The someone can do very little wrong and the 
best traits are idealised. Infatuation dies after a while as the image 
and reality are rarely the same. 

Love acknowledges both good and bad. It lasts forever. Many divorced
people still love their ex'es, they just can't live together anymore 
for any of many reasons.

I don't see them as being mutually exclusive. Lust and infatuation 
tend to go together. Lust and love can as well. It's also possible to 
be in love with someone, seeing both good and bad, yet still dust off 
the pedastel by ignoring other flaws and idealising some good points. 
The best and rarest relationships have aspects of all three. After 
all, a bit of idealising ones soulmate/bedmate is nice.

Cheers,
	George

    Re: .21 trichotomy
    
    Very well put, George!  The word "love" to me is overloaded. (Can you
    tell I'm object oriented?  In my programming, that is!)  Love is really
    a combination of a lot of different things.  Depending on the elements
    present and the intensity we each experience it in different ways with
    different people.
    
    Lust is, for me, that purely physical sexual attraction that can happen
    with a total stranger, or even with a photo :-).
    
    Infatuation, or what psychologist Dorothy Tennov calls limmerence, is
    based on an idealistic mental image of the loved one.  It doesn't last
    forever, mainly because the loved one can never live up to the ideal,
    but IMO it can sometimes last for a few years.  Its basically hero
    worship and it need not be sexual.  The idealized love that a very
    young child has for hir parents is a form of infatuation.  Like lust
    you can experience infatuation without actually having a relationship
    with the loved one, for example, the infatuation of fans for movie
    stars.  Sometimes when an infatuated relationship ends amicably before
    the infatuation itself ends, it may last for years because the loved
    one is not available to disillusion the ideal mental image, thus some
    people experience a pining away for an old love.
    
    In addition to lust and infatuation there is another element of love.
    I don't know what to call it, but its sort of the reverse of
    infatuation.  It's loving someone simply because they love you or give
    you pleasure.  You are the idol that is worshipped and you enjoy being
    the object of someone's affection.  The "love" exists only when the
    loved one is pleasing you.
    
    What I call mature love, requires intimate knowledge of the loved one
    without self deception (idealization).  You can't experience mature
    love without really knowing the loved one and accepting them for what
    they truly are.  For me the two most important aspects of mature love
    are equality and freedom.  The loved one is regarded a an equal, making
    intimacy possible and the loved one is regarded as a separate and free
    individual, not an essential part of the lover.  Mature love need not
    be sexualized.  A good close friendship, is an example of nonsexual
    mature love.
    
    I'm not sure that there aren't other elements too, and I'd be
    interested to know if anyone has ones to add.  But the great variety
    of how we experience love is IMHO due to its multiple elements and the
    differing combinations of those elements.
    
    Mary

    >Love exists when you care as much about the other person's well being
    >    as you do your own.
    
    Pshaw.
    
    Actually, pshaw on this whole discussion.
    
    You can't define love for someone else.
    
    I had this same discussion with someone not two days ago, and they also
    made the claim that loving someone meant that I place as much
    importance on the loved one's well-being as my own.
    
    I said I loved my father and my mother and my brother, but that my own
    well-being took priority over theirs, therefore that was not the
    definition of love.
    
    He said "Oh you know what I mean - not *that* kind of love!"  I said
    that, to me, love varies in quanity and intensity, but not in kind. 
    Love is love is love.  My love for my parents is more diffuse, more
    general, less sexual than my love for my (hypothetical) SO, but the
    nature of it is the same.
    
    So maybe *your* romantic love, or his, differs from your filial love,
    but mine doesn't and you can't tell me it does.  Your definition fails
    for me and it fails for many people.
    
    Everyone experiences love differently.  You can try to *describe* it
    (as I see a lot of people in this discussion doing) and try to
    determine if you are feeling the same sort of love that someone else is
    (like, perhaps, the object of your love) - but you can't *define* it
    for someone else.  Period.  No matter how you qualify it, every list of
    "attirubutes" that an emotion must match to qualify as love will be
    flawed; for at least one person, there will be love that misses and
    attribute, or a non-love emotion that has all attributes.
    
    Give it up.
    
    D!

    
    thank you, d!
    

    
    Well, maybe I'm warped, or maybe it's because I'm up later than I
    should be, thinking about things better left unthought, but I sometimes
    think of love as being willing to do what your loved-one would never ask.
    
    g'night
    
    CQ