Forget what people say love is...

[StephF]

Love is many things to many people. I don't really understand it myself. The best I can explain it by saying "No one can explain the Matrix to you. You have to experience it for yourself."
I hope you "get" what I'm trying to say even though Im not explaining it well.

 

[donn]

This is an excellent description. Self-censorship is so much a part of my existence...I really don't know how to not self-censor. I've never, ever, ever trusted anyone to that level. I don't know how.

Sounds like, from both of you, that trust is a big part of what love is. For me personally, and for many aspies, where we have such a hard time trusting anyone because we sense that we're too different for others to tolerate...maybe that's part of why it's so hard to receive love. We don't trust people enough to be authentic with them.

Trust is not a condition to love another, I believe, but it is almost certainly a condition in order to feel loved by another. You might even know that somebody loves you in their own way but that, due to their nature, you cannot trust them, and so their love becomes...something else which I don't have a name for.

Sometimes I wish I was more oblivious, that I hadn't been trained so much towards the social cues of people zoning out. As it stands, I can often see, and god knows how often I fail to see, people either zoning out or getting weirded out on me. I'm trying to test the waters with my new search for relationships, and wish I could say the results are making me more hopeful.

To be fair, self-censorship probably plays a significant role in the lives of most people. However, it's like when I found out most people only talk to themselves for a few moments each day, whereas I can't remember a day I got less than an hour of self-conversation in. They'll all say they do it too, but an entirely different perspective develops if you quantify the matter.

I've just realized that one area I put under extreme control for most of my life was sex, something noticeable to my partners. I typically maintained a certain emotional distance and sense of control as much as possible until, again, my recent serious relationship. Hopefully, I can maintain that openness going forward.

 

[Aspergirl4hire]

"If I love you, what business is that of yours?" - Goethe

I expect there is something intensely selfish in the way in which we love - my love for another tells a great deal about me, and may have virtually nothing at all to do with them. A discerning selfishness, in turn, is only to be expected of those who receive love.

Love is an affirmation, a "saying Yea" as Nietzsche puts it, of something or someone. I was engaged, only a short while ago, to a woman who, it turns out, was leading multiple lives. I did, and still do, love what I had at many times in that relationship, that reflection of herself that she put forward with me, but I do not love her as I now understand her to be. Her ability to make me feel loved was certainly the greatest I have ever felt, and I'm aware that it will likely be years until I find another person who might be able to make me feel that way.

Deeply thought and concisely put. I especially like the "discerning selfishness" phrase. My equivalent is "enlightened self-interest."

What I seek for in love is as complete a knowledge and affirmation as is possible of what I am, what I see myself as, and what I want to be.

I read this as accepting who you are now, understanding how you see yourself, and contributing to who you'll be in the future. Sound right?

I'm a big fan of a quote I know as "When two people meet, six people are present: each one as he sees himself, each one as he sees the other, and each one as he really is." I'm not sure that if I'm loved, I'd want to be affirmed as I see myself. It's come to my attention that my "reliable truths" about interpreting the world are only truths because I make them so, and the world need not be as hostile as I've often found it. I'm definitely learning something about why, and how, someone who does love me will not affirm how I see myself, if that seeing doesn't see all that's so.

It's having interesting effects. I have to learn in what situations to distrust my own conclusions, which were built from experience to protect me from future disasters. And to trust people based on their discerning selfishness: they see my value, and they feel my value, and they can't experience and enjoy love with me if my doubting mind and crippling fears get substituted for their discernment. It's...making me think at 4am, my time.

These three are not always in easy alignment, and I suspect that my typical sense that I am not really loved comes of the difficulty others have in handling these varied aspects. That psychopath, however, had a natural, nearly perfect sense of them all and did, in her own way, love me for them.

I get this. Although I've never had a psychopath "love" me, so far as I know.

A less philosophical and more practical approach to it would be a few points. Someone with whom I rarely have to engage in my usual constant self-censorship, someone who appreciates the traits I specifically try to develop in myself, and someone who can point to parts of my personality that I am blind to - these qualities make me feel love from another person.

I struggle with this one myself, but I aspire to it.

I'm very glad you posted.

 

[Aspergirl4hire]

What is it you want most in a relationship (platonic, romantic, all of them in general) in order to feel loved? ...in order to give love?

Safe enough to take risks. Secure enough to know that when I fail or fall short, that the criticism I will experience will not be used like a whip, even though I will flinch when confronted; so secure, in fact, that my philautia, my self-love based on my self-respect, defers to my familial, friendly, and other kinds of loves. I'm wrestling with this a lot, because my self-respect increases (theoretically) when other loves replace it to resolve conflict, but pride and vanity hate deference.

 

[NiceCupOfTea]

I don't know. I have a problem with loving other people. I find it very, very difficult to feel love and when I do it's usually a few distances removed - in which case, it could be infatuation instead. I actually hate being this way and crave closeness and intimacy but have no idea how to attain it. It's harder for me now than when I was a child: I started being self-conscious about love in my teens.

By the same token, I don't easily feel loved by another person. I know in theory my mum loves me, but I rarely feel it.

 

[DogwoodTree]

However, it's like when I found out most people only talk to themselves for a few moments each day, whereas I can't remember a day I got less than an hour of self-conversation in. They'll all say they do it too, but an entirely different perspective develops if you quantify the matter.

This is a bit OT, but I'm curious. How do you define self-conversation? Does it only qualify if you're talking out loud? Or do the conversations with yourself in your head count?

I'm not sure that if I'm loved, I'd want to be affirmed as I see myself. It's come to my attention that my "reliable truths" about interpreting the world are only truths because I make them so, and the world need not be as hostile as I've often found it. I'm definitely learning something about why, and how, someone who does love me will not affirm how I see myself, if that seeing doesn't see all that's so.

I'm discovering the inaccuracies in my own assumptions about the world, as well. It's been fascinating to dig up some of the differences between how I perceive my Ts intentions, vs what they're actually thinking.

At the same time, do you think there's a place for a person who loves us to BOTH acknowledge/try to understand how we see ourselves (because that gives useful insight into how we see the world) AND point out how our blind spots distort our perceptions of ourselves?

 

[On the Inside]

Pardon me, but when questions and answers about love veer towards Goethe, Nietzsche, Rochefoucauld, etc. I have to bow out of the discussion. Over-intellectualizing is a big problem for me. I've spent years trying to be a "simple guy", especially in matters of love (no more successful, I will add).

Carry on, it is entertaining.

 

[DogwoodTree]

when questions and answers about love veer towards Goethe, Nietzsche, Rochefoucauld, etc. I have to bow out of the discussion. Over-intellectualizing is a big problem for me. I've spent years trying to be a "regular guy",

Yeah, I can't go there, either. I don't mind if others want to follow those rabbit trails, but it's not really what I'm trying to get at in the discussion for myself. I want to know what love is like for aspies.

 

[royinpink]

Yeah, I can't go there, either. I don't mind if others want to follow those rabbit trails, but it's not really what I'm trying to get at in the discussion for myself. I want to know what love is like for aspies.

Are you sure Nietzsche wasn't an aspie? haha. Goethe and Rochefoucauld are both influences on Nietzsche. Nietzsche Nietzsche Nietzsche.

Yeah, I know, but I thought if donn wanted to go there, I would like to follow, 'cause nobody follows me when I do... if you know what I mean.

 

[donn]

I agree, but then, I am not sure if I would call that way of loving a very good one. I'd say it's what passes for love, I suppose, but not what I would call love. This and what you wrote at the end both remind me of a maxim written by Francois duc de La Rochefoucauld, "It is difficult to define love; all we can say is, that in the soul it is a desire to rule, in the mind it is a sympathy, and in the body it is a hidden and delicate wish to possess what we love—Plus many mysteries."

There are many who long to be younger, or from a higher class, or more confident, or smarter, or edgier, or whatever who seem to fall for someone who fits the image of who they wish they were. So when he says 'wish to possess' I think of lust/infatuation as not 'only' physical but also having this dimension to it of possessing qualities that the other person has. As for the 'desire to rule', he sort of clarifies after that this is about how romantic love tends to be monogamous/jealous, where the lover wants to be more special than anyone else to the person (s)he loves. And I would agree with you that both of those say more about the person who loves than about the person they love.



I think I agree with this. And since you brought up Nietzsche, "What is done out of love always takes place beyond good and evil."



Ooh, I like your tripartite description of self. But I'm not sure if that's why I don't feel loved (I think my post explained my one insight into that, though).

Thanks! That little trio just hit me as I wrote - trying to account for my conscious construction of my self versus my unconscious and much more unknown side. Given that Aspies in general, from what I've seen, share my tendency to consciously analyze a great deal of themselves, but have a general blindspot in regard to their unconscious selves, I think that accepting love for that which we are but do not perceive ourselves to be may be particularly difficult for us. Instead, we are likely to view an accurate appreciation of some of our traits as another party misreading us yet again.

Philosophically, I find I identify with the individualist aesthetic notions of the less sentimental Romantics - those who place personal experience at the heart of what we are and can know. This "selfishness" would technically apply to anything and everything, so it really doesn't share the grasping or greedy connotations, but it's particularly true of things so subjective as emotions. That, and a little hyperbole (I've been reading Oscar Wilde), might make my comment seem a little more harsh than it really is.

I definitely have seen people love others in order to mirror emulate, or control them, and thereby possess some of that "beloved" person's qualities. I myself have been the object of such interest more than once. I suppose that it can be thought of as proper or improper love, depending on some things. If one has such an attraction to another, but in acting on it they fundamentally destroy those qualities in the other person, that suggests to me love only in the sense that a lion might love a gazelle. I feel like there should be a good Nietzsche quote along those lines - but all I can think of is his metaphor of moral men turning into cattle, who desire to possess women who, retaining some wildness and immorality, he likens to great cats.

In my own case, I tend to love others for being different than me; their existence enlivens my world, but I don't become like them. Still, I'm aware, at some level, of the immense amount of their self that I don't really know, and would have to answer that my love for them is mostly about our interactions and my self - the latter being far more prevalent, as it is obviously a constant.

 

[donn]

Deeply thought and concisely put. I especially like the "discerning selfishness" phrase. My equivalent is "enlightened self-interest."



I read this as accepting who you are now, understanding how you see yourself, and contributing to who you'll be in the future. Sound right?

I'm a big fan of a quote I know as "When two people meet, six people are present: each one as he sees himself, each one as he sees the other, and each one as he really is." I'm not sure that if I'm loved, I'd want to be affirmed as I see myself. It's come to my attention that my "reliable truths" about interpreting the world are only truths because I make them so, and the world need not be as hostile as I've often found it. I'm definitely learning something about why, and how, someone who does love me will not affirm how I see myself, if that seeing doesn't see all that's so.

It's having interesting effects. I have to learn in what situations to distrust my own conclusions, which were built from experience to protect me from future disasters. And to trust people based on their discerning selfishness: they see my value, and they feel my value, and they can't experience and enjoy love with me if my doubting mind and crippling fears get substituted for their discernment. It's...making me think at 4am, my time.



I get this. Although I've never had a psychopath "love" me, so far as I know.



I struggle with this one myself, but I aspire to it.

I'm very glad you posted.

Very glad you enjoyed it!

I like how you put "how I see myself, if that seeing doesn't see all that's so." It rolls or, to be more accurate, it slides off the tongue beautifully, and goes right to the heart of love's difficulty for many an Aspie. (I posted a bit more on that above)

I'd also say that your take on how another person can satisfy the three types of desire for affirmation seems about right, though I have to give it more thought. There's something still missing...about the way of engaging, I'm sure. Someone can accept, understand, and support, as you say, but without the right manner of engaging me, it could still fall flat. It's not just about "the five languages" referenced in the OP, either. I'm aware that I have a certain bored disdain for most men which could blind me entirely to someone with all those qualities if they couldn't match up to me at certain levels. Women...are a much, much more complicated matter.

I looked up enlightened self-interest, to see if that might have been inspired by Ayn Rand, but it looks like it is commonly used in utilitarianism - I thought it seemed familiar. I'm not sure if either of those inspired you, but to me it has connotations of a particularly rational, logical approach, which I am currently a little leery of. Since the grounds for something like love are inherently beyond the bounds of rationality, I feel that rationale and logic are well-employed in developing a critical self-awareness (which sounds pretty close to an enlightened self-interest), but are primarily tools of negation and don't provide a footing for us to begin the matter.

My overall take on "discernment" is something similar to that which is applied in creating or critiquing art and literature. A rarely asked question is, "Do I want or even care about this person's love?"

What is it you want most in a relationship (platonic, romantic, all of them in general) in order to feel loved? ...in order to give love?

Safe enough to take risks. Secure enough to know that when I fail or fall short, that the criticism I will experience will not be used like a whip, even though I will flinch when confronted; so secure, in fact, that my philautia, my self-love based on my self-respect, defers to my familial, friendly, and other kinds of loves. I'm wrestling with this a lot, because my self-respect increases (theoretically) when other loves replace it to resolve conflict, but pride and vanity hate deference.

Hm, self-respect increases when self-love is replaced by love from others to resolve a conflict? Am I reading that rightly and, if so, what theory does this derive from?

I've noticed that I and, from what I've seen here, other Aspies have a tendency towards codependency. In my case, a relatively weak sense of "who I am" at an unconscious level, my emotional self-image, makes me more dependent on those I trust on that score. When I can accept another person "revealing" previously unknown parts of myself, I certainly feel more loved, but this can easily be abused and undermine self-respect.

 

[AsheSkyler]

Loyalty, fidelity, dependability, kindness, honor, and honesty. Surprisingly, not that hard for me to find people I care about.

 

[donn]

This is a bit OT, but I'm curious. How do you define self-conversation? Does it only qualify if you're talking out loud? Or do the conversations with yourself in your head count?



I'm discovering the inaccuracies in my own assumptions about the world, as well. It's been fascinating to dig up some of the differences between how I perceive my Ts intentions, vs what they're actually thinking.

At the same time, do you think there's a place for a person who loves us to BOTH acknowledge/try to understand how we see ourselves (because that gives useful insight into how we see the world) AND point out how our blind spots distort our perceptions of ourselves?

To the latter point first - absolutely! A healthy dose of self-discovery would do a great many people a great deal of good. Hell, that's what many people go to therapists for.

On the off topic...since many of my conversations essentially seem to take place in my head, but in reality I'm also talking out loud, I'm frankly uncertain. There are quite a few threads on this, in which I've taken part, and that seems to be a common enough tendency. I've no longer got any idea whether NT's actually have quiet inside their own heads or not.

 

[DogwoodTree]

not that hard for me to find people I care about

Do you feel their care in return? Does it come from them in the same way you listed that you express it to them?

Loyalty, fidelity, dependability, kindness, honor, and honesty.

Interesting word choice...what does "honor" mean to you? How does it feel to you inside when someone honors you?

 

[AsheSkyler]

Do you feel their care in return? Does it come from them in the same way you listed that you express it to them?

Not really. Usually it takes a long time to get somebody to get used to me and realize that things they think are rude, such as letting me have alone time or my asking permission to bother them for a few moments, are actually great for our relationship.

Interesting word choice...what does "honor" mean to you? How does it feel to you inside when someone honors you?

Honor means you don't lie, cheat, manipulate, blackmail, extort, or threaten to control your partner to get what you want. They don't fight dirty against friends, they can respect being told "no", and they have a sense of personal responsibility. I feel very relieved when I get an honorable person to deal with.

Given my history, I guess it is kind of hard for me to find people to care about. I seem to get blamed for everything and then threatened more often than I'd like.

 

[DogwoodTree]

Given my history, I guess it is kind of hard for me to find people to care about. I seem to get blamed for everything and then threatened more often than I'd like.

I think the expressions of love in each direction in an NT/AS relationship are just very different. I think your first statement earlier:

Surprisingly, not that hard for me to find people I care about.

...is still true. You're an honorable person, and you show that you care for a lot of people by expressing that care in the ways you listed. This is you caring for and loving them, according to your understanding of what love looks like.

But the later statement:

Given my history, I guess it is kind of hard for me to find people to care about. I seem to get blamed for everything and then threatened more often than I'd like.

...reflects other people's failure to express love to you in a way that natively resonates for you. They might very well love you tremendously, but the ways they express it (perhaps...always wanting to be together, or trying to "make" you feel happy, or wanting to dump their junk on you to "share the burden") just don't feel like love to you. Once these behaviors get through the aspie filter, it feels very demanding and unsafe.

But that filter works in both directions. Our expressions of aspie-love come from a place of genuinely caring about the other person. But by the time our behaviors work their way through the NT-filter, it might feel distant, cold, or clinical to them (or some other set of adjectives, depending on the relationship, I guess).

ETA: I also suspect some of these love-language-translation difficulties have an awful lot to do with healthy vs. unhealthy relationships in general, not just differences in AS vs NT styles of loving people. I suspect that NTs and aspies respond to codependent relationships in different ways, which result in different weak spots for each group, but the dysfunctions in codependent relationships are just as destructive to both.

And...both groups can do just as much of the work to address our own dysfunctional ways of relating, and learn how to express our caring for each other in healthier ways while still understanding and being authentic to our respective native "love languages" (and the inherent differences for each group).

 

[Aspergirl4hire]

Very glad you enjoyed it!

I like how you put "how I see myself, if that seeing doesn't see all that's so." It rolls or, to be more accurate, it slides off the tongue beautifully, and goes right to the heart of love's difficulty for many an Aspie. (I posted a bit more on that above)

I'd also say that your take on how another person can satisfy the three types of desire for affirmation seems about right, though I have to give it more thought. There's something still missing...about the way of engaging, I'm sure. Someone can accept, understand, and support, as you say, but without the right manner of engaging me, it could still fall flat. It's not just about "the five languages" referenced in the OP, either. I'm aware that I have a certain bored disdain for most men which could blind me entirely to someone with all those qualities if they couldn't match up to me at certain levels. Women...are a much, much more complicated matter.

I looked up enlightened self-interest, to see if that might have been inspired by Ayn Rand, but it looks like it is commonly used in utilitarianism - I thought it seemed familiar. I'm not sure if either of those inspired you, but to me it has connotations of a particularly rational, logical approach, which I am currently a little leery of. Since the grounds for something like love are inherently beyond the bounds of rationality, I feel that rationale and logic are well-employed in developing a critical self-awareness (which sounds pretty close to an enlightened self-interest), but are primarily tools of negation and don't provide a footing for us to begin the matter...

My overall take on "discernment" is something similar to that which is applied in creating or critiquing art and literature. A rarely asked question is, "Do I want or even care about this person's love?"

Hm, self-respect increases when self-love is replaced by love from others to resolve a conflict? Am I reading that rightly and, if so, what theory does this derive from?

I've noticed that I and, from what I've seen here, other Aspies have a tendency towards codependency. In my case, a relatively weak sense of "who I am" at an unconscious level, my emotional self-image, makes me more dependent on those I trust on that score. When I can accept another person "revealing" previously unknown parts of myself, I certainly feel more loved, but this can easily be abused and undermine self-respect.

Thank you for the kind words. Your own style is easy enough to read online and deep enough to inspire thought offline.

Enlightened self-interest actually came from a course in negotiation I took that was sponsored by an employer. I like it. It allows me to admit I'm selfish, acknowledges my equally authentic fascination with people, and show both systemic and transactional ways to work with others when my social deficiencies can't find a way. I'm not an Ayn fan, although I have read several of her books and a biography.

I don't find love rational, although I do believe "the heart has reasons of its own, that the head knows not of." I know I'm quoting someone. Can't remember who.

I have a slight twist to your question on discernment: "Why do I want or even care about this person's love?" It feeds into a model of loves I picked up from someone who studied social psychology--familial, phrenic, philic...there were nine, I should find the list. Intellectual, romantic, altruistic forms. Self-love, too: philautic, I think. I find that my worst decisions about other people are made in emotionally volatile situations. What looks like self-respect "in the heat" looks very different the next day or the next week. One of my current challenges is remembering to connect for care of the other even though I feel attached by the other. What looks like weakness "in the heat" can look very different the next day or the next week.

Your closing sentence is spot-on.

It's been a pleasure. I look forward to reading more of your posts.

 

[Naturalist]

"The heart hath reasons which reason knows not of"--Blaise Pascal

 

[Naturalist]

I am afraid I have little to contribute to this very philosophical discussion, at least in the way of personal insight. I feel rather lost in the matter. I often have the suspicion that I may never really feel the love that others give me, and I know for a fact that it is easier to feel love for others when I have a distance to observe them without interacting. But it's also very likely that I am just confused...

 

[DogwoodTree]

I am afraid I have little to contribute to this very philosophical discussion

Pfft, I have a minor in philosophy, and it's still over my head.

I know for a fact that it is easier to feel love for others when I have a distance to observe them without interacting.

This is definitely true for me. Sometimes I wonder if maybe I love the idea of a person more than the person themselves. Or maybe I just get so overwhelmed with the person's energy and my trying to connect with them when I'm in their presence, that I can't connect with my own feelings for that person at the same time. (I really did get very good at hiding my emotions when I was a kid. Having emotions in my family then was a very dangerous endeavor.)