Love is such a concept that everyone interprets it in their own way and diagnoses it according to their own criteria. Especially when working with couples, the most common judgment sentences I encounter are: “He doesn’t love me anymore”, “If he really loved me, he would do this or say that”, “People get jealous of the one they love”, “If I didn’t love him/her so much, I wouldn’t be so concerned (I wouldn’t get involved)”…
Many people decide whether they love or are loved based on criteria they obtain from their own experiences. We can summarize the most common of these “indicators of love” as follows: If he buys gifts, makes surprises and calls frequently, puts aside every value in his life when needed and gives you priority, wants to be in the same environment and make physical contact at every opportunity, even if it is not directly related to him.
If he believes that you are right in a discussion environment and defends you together, if he shows that he is afraid of losing you with various actions and words, he “really loves you”… If most of these criteria “do not get a passing grade on the report card”, then the existence of love in the relationship is doubted.
A person decides whether he loves someone by looking at such indicators. Do I always think about him and want to be with him at every opportunity? Do I feel like giving him surprises or buying him gifts? Do I feel like the world is aside? Etc etc… If we look at all of these carefully, we will realize that they are all just indicators to add value to ourselves or our loved ones. In other words, what we do unconsciously when determining these criteria is to measure/evaluate value.
The illusion here is dangerous because there is no globally valid unit such as the metre, liter or kilogram in the field of measuring human value. Moreover, the life/existence value of all living things is the same and there is no question of scarcity or abundance. Another important illusion is that the concept of love has nothing to do with revealing or reinforcing human worth. Love is a very deep, binding, inclusive and liberating emotion and is not suitable for such attempts to measure.
So then, what is love or being loved, and how can it be understood? First of all, love is a feeling that can emerge after seeing the other person as they are and accepting this way of existence. It does not depend on whether there are some actions directed at you or not. If the situation/form that you see and perceive without distorting it with your comments seems cute and attractive to you, you may like it.
The next step is to be able to stand next to this attractive being for a long time without interfering with its state as it is. So to love; It means that you like the thing you like as it is, without trying to give it a different shape, and that you want to enjoy this pleasantness for a long time. This emotion does not contain negative colors such as anxiety, fear, sadness, unhappiness; At most, it may be the sadness and anxiety felt when the possibility of this pleasantness ending comes to mind. However, even if a person knows this deep down, he wants to concentrate on the continuation of the pleasantness, not on these possibilities.
In this definition, love resembles an observer stance; It is a matter of getting to know a being that you like very much, witnessing it more closely, understanding it, and wanting it to be a permanent element of your life. To make this permanent, you spend time and effort, you feel interest and curiosity, and sometimes you sacrifice some values that are important to you. But what will the other person think about all this, if you don’t do it, they will understand it wrong, etc. You do it not because you feel like it, but because it feels like it and that’s your style.
From this perspective, love is a feeling that provides pleasure and satisfaction, experienced both by getting close and by keeping a certain distance (on the basis of acceptance and respect). Love does not flow for a purpose; It takes its source from your heart and you cannot prevent its flow towards its goal.
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