Well, I just had an odd conversation with Sharon.
She told me that while she cares for me, and always found being with me "fun", she loved me and still loves me like a buddy or a brother, and was never deeply in love with me. She then apologized for not being able to feel deeply in love with me.
I'm not sure what to do with this. I forgave her, but beyond that, I'm kind of stumped.
Comments
Take this for what is worth
I do not know you or Sharon other than wnhat I have read from some of your. blog posting Take this for what it is worth, so please take this for what it is worth.
To me it sounds like Sharon was saying that she never had limerence for you but she still has love for you. From pop culture some people think that falling in love is the same as love. Falling in love is limerence. Limerence is a state of being infatured or obsessed with someone. It is the feeling of butterflies in the stomach, being a little nervous and excited being around a person. It is not a state which can last forever like love. It is also what people call having a crush or being in puppy love. The seven year itch is falling out of limerence and not having love in a relationship.
Like a said earlier pop culture has made people think that you limerence is needed for a relationship to work. They think that they need to feel that to be in love with someone.
There are many definition for love but for me love is caring for the person for who they are not for what they do for you. That is what builds strong relationships of any kind.
Like I said before I do not know either you or Sharon so please take this for what it is worth. This is just using what I seen in relationships around me and applying it to your situation. I might be totally wrong about your situation with Sharon and hell I might be totally wrong about what I said about relationships.
Love is a decision and an attitude, not an action
Sarah, what you said about relationships rings very true. Sadly many people confuse love with a feeling of infatuation or the act of intercourse. Unfortunately the societal censors are banning the statement “let's have sex”, but approve of “let's make love” for the self-same act of sexual intercourse.
In my humble opinion that violation and abuse of the word “love” is the cause for the generalized ignorance of what the concept of love is. Love is above all a decision and an attitude that we make and have towards others. And love should definitely not be considered to be only a carnal action that is very often self centered.
I'll suggest filing this under "Don't worry about it.", or...
... "Uhm ... thank you for sharing." of maybe even "OK ... how about you and Sam and I) catch that new xyz movie?"
Love is one of those incredibly fuzzy and slippery words.
And overused.
And mis-used.
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The search: "wiki love agape philia eros" (using the three traditional/"ancient" Greek divisions) gave me over 10,000 hits ...
And just the 'headlines' showed me four kinds, and seven levels and a whole book, and then there's "The Five Love Languages", and ...
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If all the words 'spilled' on Love were instead blood ... we'd have no need of blood donors, nor would vampires bother us mortals for centuries ...
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"Love" is also an internal state, and so it's very hard to talk about.
It's like "Please describe the color 'blue'. And without pointing at things that most people call blue."
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So relax. Have some tea and biscuits or milk and cookies, and just carry on with loving (oops!) your family and your people.