Venting Conditional love

[avaruus]

Conditional love is one the biggest achievements a human being can achieve.

People often talk about unconditional love, and wish to be loved unconditionally. Which i do get, it can be really exhausting to put up on expectations, especially if you're currently having a situationship with someone you desperately want.

But to be loved, not because you're related to them, like how parents love their children or how siblings love each other, but because you'd have just earned it by being such an amazing human being. That is something i yearn for, a lot.

There are people in this world who genuinely love me, they really really love me.
But all of that love, every single drop of it, is unconditional.
They do not love me because i just have such an amazing personality etc. They love me because parents just love their offsprings and siblings just love each other.
That's just what they do.

My genetic makeup could have been a million or probably even a billion different ways, I could have had a radically different personality, or I could have committed disgusting and irredeemable actions, yet they would still love me.

I just wish that a girl would look into my eyes and say, 'I love you,' just because I would be such a great guy, that she just could not but feel this way for me; because I would have earned it.

Of course, that conditional love would overtime evolve into unconditional love, with greater acceptance of faults.
However, it must first be earned in order it to be truly something to live for.

 

[per_aspera_ad_astra]

I get that, I feel like such a monster that I dont think it would be possible for me to get conditional love from others. But I like to imagine I would anyway, like maybe someone would love me for who I am, not in spite of being monstrous. There's also the general urge to be able to make someone's world sparkle, obviously Im not doing that for anyone but it's nice to imagine what it would be like

 

[Rhizomorph1]

Why does love being conditional OR unconditional change the inherent value you ascribe to it? I will quote Nietzsche: "what is done out of love always takes place beyond good and evil". It is probably only our own will to ascribe meaning to something that the conditions or lack of conditions for love changes the value of the love. And this will to meaning is certainly flexible. There are certainly individuals who believe one or the other is more valuable, but I argue that love is not a rational process, just as emotions are not rational, yet still exist and we still appraise them as meaningful.

Forgive me I'm a skeptic, and I say this in a collaborative spirit, but maybe you just crave romantic love? Love does take on many different forms and we unfortunately cannot achieve all those forms from any one person, including our parents, regardless of conditions or not.

 

[ManByTheRiver]

A nice perspective!

 

[avaruus]

Why does love being conditional OR unconditional change the inherent value you ascribe to it? I will quote Nietzsche: "what is done out of love always takes place beyond good and evil". It is probably only our own will to ascribe meaning to something that the conditions or lack of conditions for love changes the value of the love. And this will to meaning is certainly flexible. There are certainly individuals who believe one or the other is more valuable, but I argue that love is not a rational process, just as emotions are not rational, yet still exist and we still appraise them as meaningful.

Forgive me I'm a skeptic, and I say this in a collaborative spirit, but maybe you just crave romantic love? Love does take on many different forms and we unfortunately cannot achieve all those forms from any one person, including our parents, regardless of conditions or not.

Because it's not really properly earned, it's almost like they don't really love ME. I'm just someone who sits in the chair that they love- Like i said, my genetic combination could have resulted in completely different persons being born as in my place. They would have felt the exact same feelings for them.
I do definetly crave romantic love tho.

 

[リンさん]

Interesting perspective. I think it's only natural to want to be loved in this way, and you're not at fault for it. I hope you get to experience it, no matter how unlikely it may seem at this point.

I guess I'm kinda the opposite in a sense, because I don't crave being loved as much as I crave loving. I've loved things very dearly, I still do, but I never had these profound feelings towards a person. I just never found someone who would have this effect on me, someone I could be genuinely fascinated and enamored by. I only had surface level crushes that eventually dissipated into nothingness.

At this point I'm doubting it's even possible for me, but I'm not losing hope.

 

[niknod]

I understand the feeling behind distinguishing those two types of loves. But unconditional love will never be the same as conditional love. Very often people promise to spend the rest of their lives together and then divorce within 2 years. And It's the support from people who love you unconditionally which gets you through that.

 

[tiger b]

A lot of definition going on here...I'd never argue or disagree with anyone on this topic, as I think it's extremely personal. To me, I choose it to be an incredibly important topic, but that is my choice, my slant on things. Maybe that particular perspective is a chain to this world, maybe it's a source of transcendence: Fuck it.

I think on the level of everyday life the ultimate arbiter of what love is, is totally down to the individual. Totally. Utterly.

Conditional? You set the conditions. Unconditional? You have set the conditions of unconditional. We actually can choose to do that, in my opinion. I could unconditionally love a toaster*, if I really created that, and sidestep common logic and sense. Insanity? Only the individual is the judge of that. Let's not play the 'what is insanity in this world' game, every person is on a sticky wicket regarding that, and we'd be here all our lives (oh we are! Maybe that's the plan. Muhahahahaha).

Opinion: Op deserves to feel whatever love they want, and to create/overcome whatever barriers to that love they want. It's their story, in that regard. We all have a story and most cling to it like limpets to the Titanic. I definitely do.

I think, I know, beyond that, there is a love and semantics cloud it but: God Is. My relationship with said toaster is by the by, in that regard.

* You are all invited to Tiger and Breville 2 slice's wedding, scheduled for next 30th February. Please bring cremateable complex carbohydrates of your choice.

EDIT: I didn't notice the 'venting' label. I apologise if this was unhelpful/misplaced in that context. I just read the post and it seemed to be thoughtful rather than venting!

 

[Iamtired]

Here's the kicker though: Even if you earn their love, they can still throw you away or be completely absent in your life.

 

[SmollMushroom]

But all of that love, every single drop of it, is unconditional.
They do not love me because i just have such an amazing personality etc. They love me because parents just love their offsprings and siblings just love each other.
That's just what they do.

My genetic makeup could have been a million or probably even a billion different ways, I could have had a radically different personality, or I could have committed disgusting and irredeemable actions, yet they would still love me.

Okay that could be your personal experience, but if you're talking in general I do not agree with this at all.

I've heard many cases of siblings hating on each others. Parents abandoning, abusing, even murdering their children.
You say you could have committed disgusting actions and your relatives would still love you. Well that's a really big fortune! I'd say that usually doesn't happen a lot! That's not how things go!
More often than not, parents will turn their backs on their children if they don't fulfill their expectations! Especially on the East part of the world, this happens quite a lot, because of their rigid culture!
The history books are full of stories of brothers betraying each other for glory and money! Unconditional love my ass lol.

To me there are extremely few cases of unconditional love.
One for example, could be a mother and her newborn: in that particular case a special bonding is there by nature. But even that unconditional love could possibly not last for long.
Another case is when one falls in love. But even then, how long till the spark fades out?

Nobody will love you by default, if you don't do anything to earn their love in the first place. At least that's what life taught me.

 

[avaruus]

I just woke up, and funnily enough had a dream about unconditional love.
Long story short:
It was me and my sister (she weren't either of my real sisters tho) living in a post-apocalyptic world.
The supplies were constantly low and we were fighting with each other constantly.
First we hunted/defended ourselves against mammoths and wolves and made a promise to each other to never backstab each other.
Then a bunch of other humans attacked our base and we eventually got killed, but atleast we died together, it was really bittersweet and made me appreciate unconditional love more.

 

[tiger b]

Sod that, defend your base properly next time

 

[Rhizomorph1]

Because it's not really properly earned, it's almost like they don't really love ME. I'm just someone who sits in the chair that they love- Like i said, my genetic combination could have resulted in completely different persons being born as in my place. They would have felt the exact same feelings for them.
I do definetly crave romantic love tho.

Why must it be earned? There's a deeper philosophical, possibly existential question here surrounding how you personally construct meaning out of love. Unless you assume the credibility of the family model constructed by and to serve the state's interests (the "nuclear family")... In a society driven by meritocratic norms (norms that designate the "merit" of an individual's worth), it is easy to construct meaning in this way if we heed society's dominant values. My point is that they are not the only possible nor existing values.

I think conditional love is often defined this way because relationships are assumed to be transactional. In many cases they are (again, driven by dominant values), but there are certainly exceptions.

I vouch for creating your own culture

Is the "ME" that you reference just your accomplishments? It follows that one ought to know us including our faults before that can love us; otherwise they love a constructed false image of us. If anything, true love is when one can tenderly hold all that you feel insecure about not having bee able to earn, and stare into you to hold that precious authentic YOU.

The "self" is probably not one thing or another. And love can bear the multiple facets of each person. I've seen it happen. I would contend that I can hold love for you without even knowing you.

 

[𝗟𝗼𝗻𝗲𝗹𝘆]

My take on unconditional love is that it doesn't exist. People will always love you under certain conditions. Parents love their children because they're theirs - and that's a condition. People love you for you, if you change they might stop - and that's a condition. There's always a condition under which people will love you for.

 

[I Can't Say]

My take on unconditional love is that it doesn't exist.

Yeah. Well. I wish I still agreed with you. It's not really a thing that can be understood rationally. Sorry if that seems patronizing.