Loving someone -OR- being in love with someone...
 

Is it just me, or is this business of "loving" vs. "being in love" total bullshit?

If I say to a girl, "I love you", and get back the response, "but are you IN LOVE with me?"- that's nonsense.

I don't understand where this separation was made. How in the hell are those two statements not the same thing?

I've heard the argument many, many times, and it always goes the same way... "I can love someone without being IN LOVE with them." This is pure nonsense. I have yet to hear a real reason.

I've also noticed this is pretty much a female thing. So- in the interest of curiosity, we'll have a fun little poll to go with this.

:)

Utter nonsense.

I think it's a way to explain a different kind of love. Generally, you love your family because you have grown up doing so. You also love your friends. A girlfriend/boyfriend you "fall" in love with. You share something more than just blood and more than just friendship.

That's a pretty shitty explanation, but I don't really know how to explain it better than that. For me, there is a difference.

As an aside, I think the word love gets tossed around too often in the english language ("I love french fries," "I love that movie," "I love boobies," etc). Perhaps people make the distinction because the word "love" is used to describe something which is just a like.

-Tamerlain

Love is Love.

:)

some people men and women alike.. make the concept of love Waaayyyyyy more difficult than they need to ;)

sweetpea

My perspective - "In LOVE" comes across to me as more an infatuation - which is ok ... if the first half stays present as well. The IN to me, indicates a counter OUT of love ... I believe loving someone is a choice, so as a result ... I just simply love.

I think there is a difference, but they're not so completely different, so I didn't vote. For examples:
I love my mom, but I'm not in love with her. I still love my ex but I'm no longer in love with him.
Love is simple when you truly love someone, but there are some subtle differences in how you love someone.

I also believe that if you're with a romantic partner, you must have both these types of love for them if the relationship is to last. So to sum it up, they complement each other, even though they are different. Where is that option in the poll?

The problem is the English language.

In French you can say, "je t'aime" which means I love you but not with the same force as, "je t'adore."

I can love a friend, I can love my kids, I can also love my lover -- the English language fails to provide us with a word that differentiates between these different types of love. We only have one word for each of these slightly different emotional states.

The phrase, "in love" is a sloppy way for trying to address this shortcoming in our language.

I love my Mom.
I love my sister.
I love my friend Steve.
I'm IN love with ratbastid.
I'm IN love with D (my girlfriend).

The 'in love' part for me is the difference between affection and acceptance (which is love, for me) and the "aaaaaahhhhh...that person is so perfect I just can't believe it." There are times when I've been "in love" with my mom - when she does something so awesome I just can't believe I'm lucky enough to have such a great mother.

I guess it's all kind of the same mush of emotions, just different nuances.

"In love" is reserved for romantic partners in my book.

To me, "in love" is just a way of saying you're totally infatuated with that person and you can't stop thinking about them. That doesn't mean you'd throw yourself off a bridge for them, just that you think they're super and you get butterflies just looking at them.

The word "love" gets thrown around a lot... that's why I make a very big distinction between "love" and "Love". I love key lime pie- I think it's fabulous. However, I Love Martel, and would throw myself off a bridge to save his life without hesitation. Needless to say, I don't feel the same way about key lime pie.

I have been "in love" with pairs of shoes before- thinking they're fabulous, wondering what they'd look like on me, finding myself daydreaming about where I would wear them at various times of the day. However, I have only ever been "in Love" with Martel- that kind of insane spiritual connection when you've been having amazing sex and are both in the middle of having an insane tantric orgasm and your bodies are wrapped around each other and you look in each other's eyes and suddenly the whole universe is wrapped up in those few, precious seconds when you see someone for the cosmic being that they are. That, to me, is being "in Love".

That being said... I love key lime pie :)

I think those above explained it pretty well.
You can love your mother, but you are only IN love with her if you are from the south.
but I digress...
In love, to me, is the spark you feel for somebody you are attracted to/are with.

I voted the last one. To me there's a big difference with loving someone and being in love with someone. When you care for someone you can love 'em but you're not in love with them, you don't have some (slight) urge to perform any sexual actions with them.
But Analog, I completely agree with you here. If someone is going to make a point of that, I'd say skip her. She knows what you're trying to say, so if she doesn't wish to understand that, she's not worth it.

Woolf

i'll use the difference if the situation needs explaining.

i'll say to close friends that i love them, even to certain ex's. But i would hope that the context around that statement would render such questioning as the OP describes unneeded.

I love my dog, but I am certainly not in love with it.

"There are as many types of Love as there are moments in Time"

Billy S.

Although I save the L-word for special occasions, there is a huge difference between L*** and the initial crush/infatuation/limerent period of many relationships.

Here's some info I've been reading up on: http://www.isi.edu/gost/brian/elbows/limerence.html

To me, being "in love" is more or less about obsession and infatuation. Loving someone is just that -- loving them. You can't sustain being "in love" over the long haul -- at least, not continuously -- but you can love somebody forever.

Sure, you can love people you'd never marry. But I don't think that the long-term love you feel for the one you partner with is a especial or different kinds of love -- at least not to start. Love is just one of the components of a long-term relationship: so are emotional compatibility, compatibility of values, compatibility of tastes, and so on. When you find someone like that _who you love or begin to love,_ you've got the basis for a life together. And a love that will grow deeper and more complex as the two of you share experiences and each other.

But to start with, it's all just love. It's just that loving the old guy down the street who taught you to play baseball isn't going to lead to the same place as loving a young woman who is in the same place in life as you and has many of the same goals as you.

Being "in love" is just dessert to all that. And of course, early on in life when the hormones rage, it's actually hard to actually love someone of the opposite sex because you are so obsessed by being _in_ love. You love the fantasy, not the person.

I have a woman I love, I've even had sex with her, but I am not in love with her. (No I don't cheat ;) )

I on the other hand, am in love with my wife.

Love is love. It's a strong feeling that someone has for another. If I had to define it, I'd say the opposite of hate, but that's not totally correct. However, if you look at it that way love is love. You can't be in hate with someone...therefore in love would be impossible too.

However, with the connotation, I believe what others have mentioned. Being 'in love' is reserved for a romantic relationship. However, 'in love' is the same as infatuation imo. In that case, 'in love' is a temporary state that truns into just love. Love is a multi-faceted feeling and can't be easily defined. The love I feel for my family and is not the same type of love that I feel for jj. And the love I feel for my friends is different and in different extremes. I care for some of my friends, but love other friends. Love is a tricky thing. However, saying you are 'in love' with something indicates that it is a new love, an infatuation, a new experience or relationship.

Overall, it is nonsense, but in the english language it is used to differentiate stages of love.

To me, it is different- maybe you say I'm not that typically male or maybe I'm not that macho. Whatever.

It's just like my ex telling me she still loves me and cares about me a lot, but she is not in love with me anymore. It is still something difficult to figure out, but I believe 'loving someone' and 'in love with someone' is something more than word play.

Rodney and shesus said it perfectly IMO.

As others have mentioned, I think the distinction is between romantic and platonic love. For example, you might love your mother, but you hopefully don't want to marry her.

So yes, I think you can say that you love someone without meaning you are in love, or that you romantically love them.

I tried to write up my own response, but it ended up being baiscally the same points as the above mentioned already made, so I guess I'll jsut second Secret's response. :p

same with lust and love, not much seperates them.

Love is what happens when you become...."Comfortable", with being in love.Same emotion, slightly evolved.

I do like that limerence word - thanks for bringing something new to the table 777.

i guess the polls say it all huh? cos, most men in here find that the two are totally different. and i agree with that.

it may however be a fine line, but there is a difference, however insignifincant it may or may not seem.

i disagree with shesus on this one, because i dont think that it differentiates between the stages.you can love someone and not be inlove with them...thats why there are so many divorce people who still love their ex spouse but because the tingly feeling you get when they touch you, or when you feel the earth move when they look into your eyes...is not there anymore.

there has to be that factor in any relationship however new or old. you have to feel butterflies in your tummy whenever you're with that person, your heart has got to pump lumps of custard whenever you open the front door of your home to find that they are the one's on the other side.

healer and i have been together for almost three years now and i consider our relationship to be quite old but all of the above happens each time im with him, or see him or even talk to him on the phone...even if i am pissed as hell at him, even when he irritates the shit out of me...even after all that, when i feel his hand slide onto mine and our fingers entertwine, i know that even through all his faults and mine alike, and even in the worst of times, he can make me smile, he can make the earth move for me, he can make my heart pump lumps of custard.

and because he can do all those things, i love him with every breath i have in me, with evry fibre of my being.

and the difference between the two is just that...

i mean, i love my dad, but my heart doest pump lumps of custard everytime i see him...

I agree with most of the examples listed above...

I LOVE my wife, and I am also IN LOVE with my wife. This is why she is my wife.

I still LOVE my ex, in so much as I care a great deal about her and consider her a good friend (well, one of my ex's at least). I am no longer IN LOVE with her in so much as I have no desire to be in a relationship with her or be romantically involved with her.

I also LOVE many of my friends. My best buddy Sam is like a brother to me. It doesn't mean I have homosexual tendencies. *shrug*

At any rate, I find them to be completely different aspects of emotion.

I love my sister, I love my friends and family, but I'm IN LOVE with my lover. Theres alot of deep emotion when you are IN love with someone. Secrets revealed and open doors to the soul reveal this type of love.

first off, i think the word limerence summed it up nicely.

the way i've been led to understand it over the years is like this:
if i were to develop a close relationship with someone, and we got to know each other very well, it's safe to say i might begin to love him/her. love their kindness, intelligence, etc. traits, per say, but moreso the personality. doesn't necessarily mean that i'm IN LOVE with him/her or want to date/marry them. i have several close friends that i love dearly, and it's a different love than what i feel for my family, but i'm not in love with them, and i don't see us going anywhere in the realm of romance or marriage, etc. does that make any sense?

As my friend put it, loving someone is deeply caring about them, and being in-love with someone is where you want to do anything to be with them, and you put their happiness above yours.

You're "in-love" with someone for the first few months of the relationship. You "love" the person for the length of the relationship after that. There is nothing like the excitement of a new relationship and that's probably what those people are attempting to describe when they ask if "you're in love with me."

The problem with the English language is that there is only one word for "love," and that word has been bastardized too much in modern society.

When using the word "love" it is never clear whether it is meant as romantic/sexual love (Eros), brotherly love (Philia), or unconditional love (Agape). Furthermore, some languages have many different words for the term depending on the context it is used, so in cultures using those languages I seriously doubt a discussion such as this would ever even take place because being "in love" with someone would be described by a totally different word than just "loving" someone.