text; un: tabris

[peripheries]

Humans talk so much about love, but how do you know what love is? And if a feel you feel is love?

The first time I felt what I thought was love, it was someone else's will. And it was sticky, heavy like my chest was constricted and I couldn't breathe, like I was choking on it.

The next time, I felt elated and weightless, like all pain and sorrow had vanished from the world and my memories. I knew eventually, I'd be hurt but... in that moment, I believed nothing could harm me, and it still cut like a knife when it happened.

Could both of those feelings be love? Or is love something else entirely? Can you hurt someone and still love them? Is being hurt by someone you care for and accepting that hurt a form of love?

How do you know if you're even capable of such feelings?

Comments

text | un: duty

[martyrofduty]

Love is enormous and dwarfs our comprehension. No one can truly capture its essence in words. The words we find and hold are the finger pointing to the moon, not the moon itself.

How do you know if it is love?

You are not its center. You're in orbit, bound by its gravity. You choose it. You decide what love you will give. You decide when to walk away and when to stay.

All you need to do is be able to live with yourself, with what you choose.

Choose it, follow through with it, and know then, you are capable.

[peripheries]

That assumes choice existed in the first place. Some beings are as were made to be and nothing more. Humans have more freedom than other living things to even be able to consider loving or not loving.

un: enpawnsant

[hearthebell]

It's a riddle and a paradox.

Ultimately, it's the one thing people give away expecting to find more of, but it doesn't usually go that way.

Some people see what's given away as free, and therefore worthless. I think if you're hurt, it's proof that you can love, though perhaps not justification.

[peripheries]

Is pain the only way to be sure? Most creatures run from things that are painful.

( text | un: duckling )

[danserai]

They can be. Love can be painful and sweet. It's not really one thing. It just needs to be something you want to keep with you.

[peripheries]

If it can be both those things, opposing things, how do you really know what it is at all?

Text UN: clickclickbloom

[onekindsoul]

I'd say the answer to all those questions really come down to the person. For me I'd say yes, it's possible to all of those.

You can hurt someone and still love them. But... You also have to be aware of the pain you've caused and make efforts to not cause the same pain again.

And the same goes for someone who's been hurt accepting it. It's not healthy to stay in a situation where you're going to continue being hurt.

You don't get any extra credit for suffering.

And... I think just asking these questions is proof enough that you've felt those feelings before- And that drove you to ask ask about them.

[peripheries]

How do you know if it's an acceptable sort of pain? I thought I was prepared to handle pain when I knew it was inevitable. Does it mean that it was too much? Or that I was just weak?

text, un: AskMalice

[slayerskiss]

[She's too emotionally exhausted to sign this as anonymous, so she just uses her regular username. She's spilling her guts like this kid is. She's spilling her guts like she spilled Maul's, or Sayo's, or Willow's.]

Everyone I've ever loved I've hurt, betrayed and screwed over and everyone who's loved me has done the same to me. I used to think that it was because something was fundamentally wrong with me, like the way I love things is broken and selfish and that I was incapable of feeling selfless affection.

But honestly. I think any talk of love being something that's fundamentally selfless and kind is bullshit. You can hate someone and still have your entire life revolve around them, still think about them every day, still want to be with them constantly. You can love someone and want to kill and ruin them too. Where I'm from, that's the only way that most vampires and most demons know how to do it.

Don't know where I'm going with this.

I guess I just mean it's all the same. Whether it hurts or drives you insane or makes you kind or makes you cruel, it's the same general emotion. I think the fact that it hurts means you're more than capable.

Wouldn't hurt so much if you didn't feel it in the first place, right?

[peripheries]

I have pain and been hurt. I've betrayed and been betrayed. Is that what it is? Trapped in a cycle looking for love without pain when it doesn't exist?

text; un: eudaimonikos

[eudaimonikos]

Do you mean romantic love, or regular love?
Humans say they're different, I don't really know.

[peripheries]

I thought I was starting to understand. But... if I don't understand love, I don't think I could tell them apart. Not really.

un: warden; text

[megatheorem]

Don't let someone treat you poorly and write it off as love. Love isn't an excuse.

[peripheries]

Humans will always hurt each other. It's the nature of living as separate beings. What sort of pain is acceptable and what isn't?

text | un: asogi

[truerevival]

Both of those could have been love. Though the pain may have overshadowed the sweetness one often associates with the feeling.

I believe everyone is capable of love in some capacity, though love takes on many forms. It need not be romantic to be considered love.

...I have personally debated on what I feel for someone is more than platonic.

[peripheries]

How can same thing feel so different? How can you recognize it in its next form?

...How do you know the difference between those types of feelings?

text; un: trapmaster; cw: corpse metaphor?? i'm so sorry for her

[loopsbian]

For humans, both might have been love, and both might not have been as well. I can certainly say I felt "elated and weightless" once, too. And I can say just as certainly that the betrayals I felt afterwards were all the more painful for it.

But if you must know, here's what I think:

When you first feel something for another, it's usually interest. You want to know more about them, whether they showed you that courtesy first or whether you've nothing better to do. Over time, an affection is born. You enjoy spending time with them, and while away the hours alongside them.

Perhaps attraction comes next, or perhaps obsession. Or perhaps the pain begins sooner than most. Regardless, inevitably, all those emotions you felt are murdered one by one before your very eyes. Your friends betray you. Your lover cheats. The march of time refuses to stop, and one of you is always left in the dust. The corpse of your relationship rots and decays, and new infections begin to grow throughout. Anger! Despair! Hatred! All of them twist into your feelings, until even the thought of the kinder times pushes you into insanity.

And then time continues to pass. The hatred passes. Perhaps you don't think about them every day. Perhaps you do. But over time, even the mold and bacteria die out, and eventually all that's left is a husk that even nature won't take as its own. It's an empty, sad thing, hardly worth your time. But it's the only proof you have that you once felt anything at all.

That decayed husk is what I would call "love."

[peripheries]

...I see. At least, in the end, there's no longer pain. Is that the solace people take when they choose to love? That the end result something that can still be held but all the sharpness is worn away and it's gone cold.

But at least it was real.

text; un: endless

[manyone]

Love can feel like so many things. It is a joy, making you lighter than air. It cuts you sharper than any knife and mends you back together again.

Sometimes it is heavier than anything you have ever known and you wish that you could throw it away but you must walk on to the end, carrying it in spite of yourself.

You must carry it precisely because it crushes you to dust.

Love is most certainly a necessary condition of being human. It is painful and beautiful all at once and it binds human beings together in ways that can be horrifying and wonderful. Yet humans do not exist without it.

Re: text; un: endless

[peripheries]

It's as I thought then. If I learned that I was capable of love it would be proof of my humanity. If not, proof that I truly was not human.

Now I just have to determine how I tell if my feelings were real.

we're doin it we're goin right to action

[unsheathedfromreality]

[As one of the other residents of the too-empty house--however temporary--Illarion (or rather: Iskierka) takes note of the post as it appears on the network and does not respond to it in writing.

It makes far more sense to go find Tabris wherever the boy's found to write from, and perch silently beside him. Close enough to touch, if it's wanted; not so close he intrudes, if not.]

≪Love is an action, little bird. And loving makes us vulnerable.≫

[peripheries]

I don't want it.

I thought it would be better. Different. But it hurts even more.

[There's a childish shift to twist his face away, but he doesn't jerk his body entirely, keeping the slightest connection between them.]

un: μῦς | image | private

[terriblepurpose]

[A picture is sent.

Captured at a curiously low angle, it is an image of Kaworu himself, tucked between two chests as he sleeps. A scarred hand is curved around one shoulder, and Kaworu's face is turned to rest his ear against a beating heart.

A soft, slight smile graces his mouth.]

[peripheries]

[He stares at the image for a long time, transfixed by it. He has no memory of it and yet it feels so familiar.]

Sophia... where are you?

text (un: falcogrice, way past mid month)

[grice]

Kaworu ,
Question complex . Love is feeling , many feeling .
You not well ? I worried .

[peripheries]

Falco...

What's wrong?

text; un: liontamer

[chickenchoicejudy]

i think it's all of those things and more. it's a pretty big range. that's why there's so many love songs - lots of ground to cover. but also I think sometimes you don't know for sure until you're actually in love?

the hurt part...hm. it's complicated?

people accidentally hurt each other all the time, but like. i think the difference is whether or not they wanted to hurt you? if someone is like, trying to hurt you on purpose, that's not love anymore. but the accidental kind, like...you can work through that. you can talk to each other and work things out. it doesn't have to hurt. and if it hurts alllll the time it's probably not love either.

and maybe it's kinda weird but the work makes it feel worth it to me? like anyone can say they love you but not everyone will love you so much that they want to put in the work to be with you.

this has been sitting open in a tab for a week omg

[peripheries]

There is a difference between purpose and accident, though some might say it doesn't matter as both cause a wound.

Do you think that hurt can still be worth it even if it was done on purpose? Can something like that be overcome...?