Define love

JX: "HT, do you love me?"
HT: "Define the word love."
JX: "You would die for me, abandon yourself for me; without me, the world would collapse."
HT: "That is not how I understood love."

HT: "JX, Suitable is not a despicable word; neither is love particularly noble. It's hard to find the right person. Three views, goals, time, ideas, spirit, interests, even just the ability to continue a conversation and share humor... it's hard to have everything match up, to be suitable. I really like you, that's true. As for the kind of love you want, I thought that it would slowly develop day by day, accumulating over time in the future. For me, it's impossible to have it all at once."

At this time, she was too sad, too focused on her own pain, and didn't really try to understand what he was saying. Perhaps for a moment, her rational mind thought that he made sense. But he was someone who had a natural ability to make any argument sound convincing. But no matter how reasonable he was, her emotions were already full of holes that couldn't be filled by reason. Another tear fell and she shook her head, shaking it again, "you can be like this. But I can't, I can't... Because... He only like her, but she had already fallen in love with him.

 whoissilmoy:

JX: "You would die for me, abandon yourself for me; without me, the world would collapse."

Maybe I'm too pragmatic (married over 30 years) but I don't remember wanting the above of anyone, not even in my youth. I've always wanted to be with someone who stays true to himself and allows me the same; that's exactly who I ended up with. Our peace and happiness came after a lot of work on both our parts, esp. coming from very difference backgrounds, culture and having different temperaments. We do share core values, have very similar parenting styles and communicated well on our financial goals, all of which helped tremendously. In the end, I'm with Han Ting on this.

 whoissilmoy:

goals, time, ideas, spirit, interests, even just the ability to continue a conversation and share humor... it's hard to have everything match up, to be suitable.

Not everything will match up, but being able to talk and continue that conversation for a lifetime is rare. My spouse continues to fascinate me and he still makes me laugh.

JX: "You would die for me, abandon yourself for me; without me, the world would collapse."

I really would not expect that from the person I love . That is just some crazy stuff.  No person should go to such extremes for someone. There is a fine line between love and insanity and I would be very scared.  LOL

i would run as far as I can.

I think you need to be practical to a certain extent but that comes only with age and experience. We all have our head in the clouds  especially in our 20s and to a certain extent in our 30s. And everybody’s idea of love changes with time/age. But what Han Ting said is right - at the minimum the compatibility/suitabilty needs to be there for you to move forward. And people do mold themselves to become more compatible especially if they love that person. You basically work for that compatibility to maintain it.

And what JX said in that conversation- that kind of expectation is pathological obsession .  Everybody has their limits and bottom lines . It’s not realistic to expect that . But I think she understood his point when she went away and thought about it. She did change herself :) and he changed too