Young People Who Want To Learn About Love

This Blogger is for young people who want to learn about love. The word love is most commonly used to mean all that takes shape between a man and a woman on the basis of the sexual urge. A problem for almost everyone, especially young men and women, is to understand what love is. If you do not understand then you may hurt other people very deeply and at the same time damage your own person.

Perhaps you are in a situation where it is apparent that love may not last. Or maybe you want love, but you have not yet experienced love. If you want a love that will last then you will have to allow that it is possible that love, as it is accepted in the media, cannot last. There is more to a lasting love than just expressing feelings related to your sexual urge.

The Other Person

To understand what makes a love that lasts, it helps to briefly ignore the differences between the sexes and think of the similarities. Put yourself in the place of the person that you want to love and that you want to love you. That person, like you, has, or at least should have, distinct personal goals. So if you love that person you will evaluate those goals and treat them as if they were your own.                                                                                                                    Each person in a true and mutual love must make the good of the other his or her own goal. If we really love that person we will not use them just to satisfy our own pleasure seeking. To love them means to make their personal good the focus of our relationship. Thus the lover 'goes outside' the self to find a fuller existence in another.

RELATIONSHIPS

A relationship is a personal association of some permanency. However the basic characteristics of a relationship even apply to casual encounters. Also, many important relationships in our life do not involve the sexual urge at all.Our first relationships are with our parents and other members of our family. We come to know and love the persons who love us. Close physical contact is comforting and a way of expressing love and emotional closeness.When awareness of our sexuality and the opposite sex develops we become driven by things that are good in their own right and we naturally desire that good for ourselves. So we develop relationships outside our own family which have more than the element of friendship associated with them.

PERSON OBJECT

In a relationship you experience another as a distinct person. You see the other person through two filters. Firstly, you actually see the person in a bodily sense and your emotions report the experience. Secondly, you see the person through your interior life, your likes, your ideals, and your concept of good.

If the relationship is sustained it will develop as a result of your actions and experiences. The other person becomes an object of your will, through the actions that you exert towards him or her. Each relates to the other in a subject-object association. You see and act upon a person object. Meanwhile the roles are reversed. The other person sees and acts upon you.

SEXUAL DESIRE

The sexual urge is the raw material of love. It is a gift that can only reach its potential when it is integrated with the other qualities of love.

It should be realised that in his sexual urge the male is likely to be sensual, whereas the female's sexual urge is more likely to be one of sentiment. However love is not just an emotion, and still less a mere excitement of the senses.

If actions in a relationship are shaped primarily with a view to pleasure, then the person who is the object becomes a means to an end. Love demands that a person of the opposite sex cannot be only a means to an end (sexual pleasure).

OBJECT OF USE

Many of our actions are taken in order to seek pleasure or to avoid pain. Pleasure and pain occur at the emotional level. You choose a dessert for the enjoyment of eating. You take medication. The same principles apply to many of our actions in a relationship. Imagine meeting that special person and experiencing an expression of delight on their face as they see you. This is undoubtedly a pleasure for you. Perhaps you have given the person a gift with the same result. Your action has resulted in pleasure for you.

There can be different motivations for giving a gift. Your gift was likely given with goodwill towards the person, and you hope that your gift will help that person achieve some genuine good. On the other hand, your gift could be made with the intention of provoking some reaction from the person, besides expressing appreciation, that is enjoyable for you. In that case you may be using the person for your own ends.(continued below)

In order to evaluate your actions in a relationship ask yourself are you using the person who is the object of your relationship?

Would you use that person as you would use a bus or a taxi to get somewhere that you want to go? Would you build a relationship with a person in order to gain acceptance into a circle of friends of that person, without making your intentions known? It is certainly possible to use a person for your own ends.

UNDERSTANDING LOVE We use the word love to mean different things, which are often intertwined in our relationship with someone of the opposite sex. You would say that you loved a person with whom you were sexually intimate. But you also love people who never arouse any sexual emotion in you. For example, you love your mother, and you would probably say that you love your brother or sister. So love must be different from having sex.

If we love someone we treat them with justice. That is, we would not take their belongings from them, or tell lies about them, or blab to others about their human frailties or misdeeds. Love is linked to justice and kindness, but love is something more. You would treat a person that you encountered in the street or on a bus with justice. Love is bound up with a desire for the good of the person. The actions of love are guided by a belief that the person is good and so deserves love. Love is concerned with a person directly and immediately. Love precludes using a person for our own ends. Finally, there is one overriding characteristic of love. If we love someone we are prepared to forego something of ourselves for the good of that person. Love is giving ourselves because we believe something deeply and dearly about the other person. Love may be inspired by what we have received from the person, but it is given freely.

YOUNG LOVE Imagine that there was someone of the opposite sex with whom you had recently come to enjoy a meaningful relationship, in which their sexual identity was attractive. There was desire within you. You were asking yourself could this be "love"? Then you witnessed that person confiding in someone else, exhibiting a level of intimacy between them. How would you feel? It would be natural to experience feelings of bitterness, hurt and anger. Clearly the relationship that you had enjoyed would have to be reexamined. But how about your presumed love? Would it still positively influence your attitude towards that person? Or, after consideration, would your love evaporate to be replaced by emptiness or even antagonism? Many relationships amongst young people bloom and fade, and expectations of a deep and lasting love are dashed. The way in which we survive such disappointments is dependent on our understanding of love. Were my expectations of love dominated by what this relationship would mean for me? Had I placed unrealistic conditions on the other person? Did I have an interest in finding out what the other person's aspirations were, evaluating them, and making good of them? There is something about true love that survives when a relationship fades. True love is always given freely, it is not self-seeking. Thus in a lasting relationship, your love survives those acts of human frailty that disappoint and hurt us. Every time that you love truly, your capacity to love grows.

FRIENDSHIP

Everyone needs friends of either sex. Friends enjoy their companionship, comradeship and adventures, but the essential quality of friendship is an unswerving commitment to the good of another. You can rely on a friend when it counts.

Immature love is often skewed towards sensual and sexual values, or it is almost solely based on the pull of emotions and sensations. If you allow these emotions to dictate the progress of your relationship then you will not have the opportunity to first of all be friends.

It is in the experiences of friendship that emotional and sensual reactions take a back seat and the real person comes to the fore. "Being cool" with a friend will always be seen as a sham. Friendship is the proving ground for a relationship that is going to last.

Friendships between male and female that do not progress to married love are a great good in themselves. In some cases their very existence may have avoided heartbreak for people who would have entered a sexually intimate relationship which was destined for failure.

ROMANCE Romance requires the time to have experiences that appeal to our imagination, so it will happen naturally for most young friends. It isn't a prerequisite to love but people who understand love can have romance. Romance is colourful and the other person in a romance is full of attraction because of the marvellous achievements, or even because of the way that person looks, and relates to you. Romance always has a sense of unreality, if only in the awareness that a greater commitment lies beyond. To have romance is be on a stage where the actors are happily playing out their own life without those commitments that can bear upon us. Thus while a kiss born out of affection is often part of romance, because it can only create a deeper love and affection it must inevitably end romance by introducing the reality of love. Romance is always an interlude or a prelude. Unlike love it must come to an end. For most people there will be a romance from which there is no turning back.

BETROTHED LOVE If your love has developed in a balanced way you will recognise attraction, desire and goodwill towards the other person. If your love is going to last, your sexual desire is overshadowed by your need for the person whom you love. The enormous implication is that you want that person to give himself or herself to you. The idea of giving oneself to another only makes sense if it is reciprocal, and so a progression of love between man and woman is towards a mutual desire for the person who is such a good for them. The essential trial of friendship underpins a mutual self-gift in which the ' I 's are changed at the very core of their freedom. To understand this we must know what freedom truly is. Giving ourselves is clear proof that we possess ourselves, and the gift is to a freely chosen person. This self-giving is in love, and towards attainment of an ever greater fullness of existence. Freedom is not so much “freedom of choice” but more in “freedom for self-giving” in a way in which we remain in possession of our person and thus can continue the gift. Now your love is ready for sexual intimacy in marriage where it can assume its fullness in experience and richness in meaning and symbolism. This love precludes any use of the person and every action is conditioned by the good of the other person.

The MEANINGS and CHARACTERISTICS of LOVE

ATTRACTION feelings that arise spontaneously attraction to the person attraction to particular qualities inherent in the person DESIRE man needs woman, woman needs man yearning for the person (a good for me) sexual desire GOODWILL directed to a genuine good longing for the person's good without self interest RECIPROCITY something common to the man and the woman love in return for love given SYMPATHY the pull of emotions and sensations the subjective intensity of love COMRADESHIP sharing objective common interests FRIENDSHIP wanting what is good for another in a reciprocal relationship moral unity between the man and the woman BETROTHAL the man and woman give themselves each to the other