This has largely been my experience. I have invariably chosen people who see the world in a widely differing view than my own. This has resulted in a fair amount of alienation, and inevitably a sense of obligation holding the relationship together on my part (my version of Aspie "loyalty"?)
And it is that " love is mostly about our interactions" that leaves me feeling that love has never been and will never be all its cracked up to be. I thought about this on my bike ride home from work this evening; my relationships have been about a shared experience, when we are together and interacting, engaging in some activity or just being together. Some of that is relating to each other the events of the time we have spent apart, some about what we might do in the future, and maybe a little bit about the here and now. If I think about it, those experiences have really left me quite underwhelmed in terms of deep emotional experiences, as I would expect out of "love". Mostly my issue.
Not sure where that leaves me.
There is a form of love which, one could argue has something to do with "experience" but in a different sense, which I feel can shed additional light on our love for other people. One can love a piece of art, without any hope or desire to change that art, receiving nothing more than the satisfaction that such art exists. In fact, it may be a piece of physical art you have never seen in person, not even once, and yet you can love it all the same.
Now, that love still has something to do with how the piece of art, at some level, touched you - this is true of anything and everything. We cannot love something that we do not interact with, and probably cannot identify love of something we are not aware of. Nevertheless, a love for a sculpture seen once or twice in pictures...there is something wonderful in such a celebration.
I think we can and do love people in such a manner, at times. This, at the very least, draws parallels to the notion of pure, selfless love that is so widely praised. A celebration that such a person exists, even (perhaps especially) if they are removed from my own direct experience, is as close to a practical description of "agape" that I know of.
This tends to be my experience as well. It's like I've always had this expectation that the experience of love should be a deep, profoundly emotional and intimate experience in the moment with someone...but when I'm honest, that's not what I actually experience. And thus, the severe disappointment when I've been looking forward to "connecting" with someone, only to be confined to walking alongside them for a few moments but never experiencing the actual person. Probably an issue within me as well (as in...not their fault).
I keep asking people what love feels like to them...if it is an emotional experience for them, where they feel connected with people. It appears to be that way for them. But maybe I'm confusing enmeshment with love.
If I'm correct in some of my theories, loving someone in this "selfless" manner may represent a sort of expansion of consciousness. I never felt, of my own accord, certain ways about certain situations, but I could actually feel differently with and through my ex-fiancee. My sense of what was possible, a new take on life, increased. This is something that has, rather covertly, occurred throughout much of literature or in the writing of history, and to find it in another person is like finding a living piece of art - more real than reality.
Of course, without some (generally quite a lot of) interaction, one cannot begin to develop such an appreciation. It can also be mistaken or mislead by false appearances, but that is true of any and every thing. If and when it is formed, it greatly deepens my feeling of love for another, and adds that note of selflessness, the feeling of the whole universe expanding into and through this other person.
I have no expectations of finding this connection with anyone that I meet. It's difficult enough for me to predict who might make a decent friend, much less something like this - so I'm protected from disappointment by a shield of mild despair.
I do agree about the motives manufactured after the event, and claimed to be present beforehand. They may be true upon deeper analysis, but would be highly susceptible to wishful thinking, which I have suspected in the recounting of other couples mythologies.
Language gets more than a little hazy in these matters. I absolutely believe in structures which influence/determine what we do and how we react. However, they are also infinitely complex and our attempts to determine what they are, to find firm and factual reasons, must construct a narrative, a fiction of sorts which is necessarily incomplete and inadequate.
There can be no doubt, for instance, that my relationships with women have been strongly influenced by the fact that I was, shall we say, "drafted" into my parents' fights and often directly informed that a man's value is mostly determined by how he supports his wife. That could be called a reason for many of my preferences. However, describing a particular motive to a particular action goes far beyond any individual fact.
