WHAT'S LOVE GOT TO DO WITH IT?
Social Constructions of Love
The personal
concept of love depends on many factors.
Not sure about five languages of love...I do know about experience, reality, life, wisdom, growth and maturity...most importantly spirituality.
Yet to love, on one hand, you first have to start with loving yourself. Love of self starts with self-respect, self-knowledge, understanding and knowing your worth. People say, "you attract the love you believe you deserve"...I believe you accept the love you feel you deserve.
Love as hate is a four letter word...Just words, unless embodied around action. You are going to accept what you feel and think you deserve. Low-self esteem or low self worth will have you accepting less. Some abused women actually thought they were worthless and deserved to be hit, degraded, and/or humiliated. Thinking about it makes me constipated...
You can only tell and show a person what and how you perceive love to be. Only on an individual level are we able to define, give and act on and be able to receive love, from where we are...mentally, spiritually and emotionally...solely on the basis of what "love" means to you.
The individual mind is simple yet complex. There is free will. We all come from various cultures, backgrounds, upbringings and experiences. Personal choice. I think personal choice scares many people. Can I trust this person to "love" me? How can I be vulnerable to enjoy this? Will this person accept me? Will this person not reciprocate? Will this person leave me? We question ourselves or the other person's "LOVE"? So we hide, we act out, play games, we try to control, while others may try to manipulate and dominate!
Do we choose who we love? Are we addicted to one another? Are some addicted to love? Ones capacity to love consist of many variables. When "loving" someone do we not take into account their personal history, morals, fears, insecurities, vulnerabilities, culture, parents, personal experiences, losses, stability, and level of maturity, spirituality, and overall character? And vice versa...
Yet to love, on one hand, you first have to start with loving yourself. Love of self starts with self-respect, self-knowledge, understanding and knowing your worth. People say, "you attract the love you believe you deserve"...I believe you accept the love you feel you deserve.
Love as hate is a four letter word...Just words, unless embodied around action. You are going to accept what you feel and think you deserve. Low-self esteem or low self worth will have you accepting less. Some abused women actually thought they were worthless and deserved to be hit, degraded, and/or humiliated. Thinking about it makes me constipated...
You can only tell and show a person what and how you perceive love to be. Only on an individual level are we able to define, give and act on and be able to receive love, from where we are...mentally, spiritually and emotionally...solely on the basis of what "love" means to you.
The individual mind is simple yet complex. There is free will. We all come from various cultures, backgrounds, upbringings and experiences. Personal choice. I think personal choice scares many people. Can I trust this person to "love" me? How can I be vulnerable to enjoy this? Will this person accept me? Will this person not reciprocate? Will this person leave me? We question ourselves or the other person's "LOVE"? So we hide, we act out, play games, we try to control, while others may try to manipulate and dominate!
What is this divine yet devilish concept of love?
People want it, crave it, kill for it, obsess over it...
yet are scared to death of it!
Do we choose who we love? Are we addicted to one another? Are some addicted to love? Ones capacity to love consist of many variables. When "loving" someone do we not take into account their personal history, morals, fears, insecurities, vulnerabilities, culture, parents, personal experiences, losses, stability, and level of maturity, spirituality, and overall character? And vice versa...
I find that if you volunteered at a domestic violence shelter, you would find many women and men who have been on the receiving end of abuse, may think or at one point thought the abuse they were receiving is love. And on the flip side, the abuser, sadly was only showing their "love" the only way life has conditioned them to be.
If he hits me, that means he loves me. If you sit around the typical barbershop, a lot of men feel that if they are not controlling her and she is jumping through circus hoops she may not be that much into him. Many men feel if the woman is not "tripping" or bugging out, then she is not in love. Or we could see it as a way to display his masculinity over the female, because this too is his way of displaying love...Using money, emotions, children etc as pawns in the dating game...
Where is the drama free love? When did love become so complicated and such a convoluted set of mind games and circus acts?
If he hits me, that means he loves me. If you sit around the typical barbershop, a lot of men feel that if they are not controlling her and she is jumping through circus hoops she may not be that much into him. Many men feel if the woman is not "tripping" or bugging out, then she is not in love. Or we could see it as a way to display his masculinity over the female, because this too is his way of displaying love...Using money, emotions, children etc as pawns in the dating game...
Where is the drama free love? When did love become so complicated and such a convoluted set of mind games and circus acts?
When a person has been abused as a child, she or he may continue to seek out that abuser for the rest of their life. If a person has been
neglected as a child, he/she will continue to live with this sense and fear of abandonment. A lot of
people are not looking for love, they are actually looking to be helped, saved, and rescued.
Many people are not looking for love they are actually
looking for help.
Love and a relationship means different
things to different people. Men can have sex and not be in love. Women can have sex with that same man, and be head over heels in love. Perception. If you are not on the same page or even sometimes reading the same book, what is the point. How can we drive up the street together when we are looking in two different directions in LIFE! When you are dating someone are you looking at
the same long term vision? Or a casual fling?
I have seen many women in committed relationships with men who are committed to being single. I have seen many man cheat with women who they have no intention on being with for women they have no intention on leaving. And vice versa....Would you rather not get what you want, settle for less, or wait for what you feel you deserve? Most people would just rather have someone to not risk feeling lonely. What are you worth? Do you know what you deserve?
I have seen many women in committed relationships with men who are committed to being single. I have seen many man cheat with women who they have no intention on being with for women they have no intention on leaving. And vice versa....Would you rather not get what you want, settle for less, or wait for what you feel you deserve? Most people would just rather have someone to not risk feeling lonely. What are you worth? Do you know what you deserve?
It's is a perpetual cycle. We are not all born in pain. We are conditioned by the pain. A person is not born callous or born an abuser...There are a lot of broken spirited
people in the world. Hurt people hurt people. Only you can decide when enough is enough and cancel your subscription to their issues.
To an abuser or an abused person, depending on their independent perception of love, it can take on two totally different meanings. People will only do to you what you allow. What you allow is what will continue. Although everyone has a varying concept of what love means to them, abuse is never an excuse in any shape form or fashion. Some of the most deepest scars are the ones you cannot see. The emotional. The mental. I cannot define love, yet I know it does not make you feel worthless.
To an abuser or an abused person, depending on their independent perception of love, it can take on two totally different meanings. People will only do to you what you allow. What you allow is what will continue. Although everyone has a varying concept of what love means to them, abuse is never an excuse in any shape form or fashion. Some of the most deepest scars are the ones you cannot see. The emotional. The mental. I cannot define love, yet I know it does not make you feel worthless.
THE CYCLE CONTINUES
Good guy meets a bitch...fucks guy over, guy turns into an asshole.
Asshole meets good girl...fucks her over, girl turns into a bitch.
Bitch meets good guy...fucks him over, he also turns into an asshole.
We
live in a society where building broken homes,
sleeping around, juggling multiple people, main lovers, side lovers, playing with emotions, having multiple children with multiple people, having children out of wedlock, negativity and ignorance seems
to be the new way to norm to building the family structure. It is strange to me to see how many people are okay with settling, being abused, or being degraded just to say they have someone. Or even worse, degrading themselves....
MEN ARE YOU PUSSY WHIPPED?
&
LADIES ARE YOU DICK-STRACTED?
Unless you get a commitment you are just another experience...yes, mattress practice.
We always blame men on practicing deception and manipulation? What about the role women play? How many times have you accepted and never questioned the RED FLAGS?
THE ENABLER:
How many times have you auditioned for the role as the damsel in distress?
How many times you wanted to be the star player and others were auditioning for the role? How many of you are wanting to be rescued?
Waiting for that knight in shining armour to be the leading man in your life?
Prince Charming, Don Juan with the magic wand...
Caviar and Cinderella Dreams that end up in nightmares and screams....
Caviar and Cinderella Dreams that end up in nightmares and screams....
Are you searching that love from that father figure?
Are you searching for a hero?
Are you searching for a hero?
Drama does not just float into our lives. We create it. We accept it. We choose to embrace the drama by becoming an active participant in the mess. Either we create it or we accept it.
You can choose to dismiss the nonsense.
You can choose to dismiss the nonsense.
Although we hate to admit, we as women encourage and ignore the red flags. Consistency, effort, investment...emotionally, spiritually, intimately and mentally.... is essential in developing and building with someone. Anything less than long-term is a distraction.
People are going to go where they want to go. No baby, no money, no looks, no nothing...except that persons free will, and personal choice and wanting to stay and remain will keep someone. Being faithful and loyalty are personal choices. The scary part is either we get married or we break up. What you allow is what will continue. That goes for man or woman.
When you become an enabler you are offering essentially acceptance of whatever behavior or situation you are in. So if you are the other man/chick, side man/chick or woman is he cheating with...you are only playing yourself further into a dead end situation. If you are dealing with someone who does not respect or appreciate you, it is your choice to remain in that situation. Do you continue to invite drama into your lives?
Our lives are compromised of choices, chances, changes, and challenges.
Only a change of thinking, and behavior changes relationships. You accept and allow the love you think you deserve.
RELATIONSHIP versus SHIT-UATIONSHIP
Who is really falling in love?
The key is not to get married.
The key is to stay married.
In
2005, I remember writing about what the social construction of love was to me.
As follows:
I found the concept of love
intriguing because it deals with an emotion. Love is universal. Although I
think love is a series of emotions felt at once. There are different types of
love—parent/child, individual/animal, family member, romantic etc.
Romantic love is a scary
thing and is a struggle. It is scary because when you love someone, you lose or
give up a certain amount of power. The struggle in many instances is the
turmoil that enters a relationship, and you question yourself if it is worth
it? You struggle with losing your power and individuality. In love, you come
under someone else’s influence. There is never a balance of power in any
relationship.
Love is an emotional attachment.
Many have various concepts of what love is. When love is used as a tool for
control, it acts as a limited concept. How does love become to be? Is it part
of our innate ability, acquired ability, or a product of culture? We start to
love and learn love when we are born, building that connection with parents.
Culture predetermines guidelines in turn influencing individual emotions. To me there are different stages in romantic love, infatuation, like, lust and then love. Romantic love is intense and passionate. Love ennobles and establishes oneness. In romantic love, you idealize one another. Once upon a time, I idealized my partner. The more we became meshed into one, the more my perception of him changed. Instead of me growing closer, I grew apart. Because of my interpretation and standard of love, my idealization of my partner deteriorated because of other elements introduced into the relationship.
How do you know when you have crossed the line between like to love someone? When you do things, you would not do or accept behaviors you would not normally accept from someone you did not love. Love is blind, cannot be measured, it can embody you and can be very intoxicating. Romantic love is one possible response to the need to experience emotional union with another. We are brought up in a web of social dependency with others.
From an early age we are taught not only with Valentine’s Day, going steady, marriage, and the prom. I remember as a child writing on a paper, check this box if you like me and passing the notes in class and would have dropped dead if my teacher would have taken the note to read aloud. Courtship is a symbol that begins the process. Then it leads, grows, and develops into other things, such as exclusivity, friendship, or even marriage.
I agree that social implications lead way for social construction of love. There are different interpretations and standards of love some ideals and standards or higher than others. Are our brains wired to love? Or is it taught? I think both, because not everyone has the same ideals of what love is. Ideals of love vary depending on the individual. Ones concept of love depends on need/desire, upbringing, environment, and socialization (nature v. nurture).
Culture predetermines guidelines in turn influencing individual emotions. To me there are different stages in romantic love, infatuation, like, lust and then love. Romantic love is intense and passionate. Love ennobles and establishes oneness. In romantic love, you idealize one another. Once upon a time, I idealized my partner. The more we became meshed into one, the more my perception of him changed. Instead of me growing closer, I grew apart. Because of my interpretation and standard of love, my idealization of my partner deteriorated because of other elements introduced into the relationship.
How do you know when you have crossed the line between like to love someone? When you do things, you would not do or accept behaviors you would not normally accept from someone you did not love. Love is blind, cannot be measured, it can embody you and can be very intoxicating. Romantic love is one possible response to the need to experience emotional union with another. We are brought up in a web of social dependency with others.
From an early age we are taught not only with Valentine’s Day, going steady, marriage, and the prom. I remember as a child writing on a paper, check this box if you like me and passing the notes in class and would have dropped dead if my teacher would have taken the note to read aloud. Courtship is a symbol that begins the process. Then it leads, grows, and develops into other things, such as exclusivity, friendship, or even marriage.
I agree that social implications lead way for social construction of love. There are different interpretations and standards of love some ideals and standards or higher than others. Are our brains wired to love? Or is it taught? I think both, because not everyone has the same ideals of what love is. Ideals of love vary depending on the individual. Ones concept of love depends on need/desire, upbringing, environment, and socialization (nature v. nurture).
WHAT'S LOVE GOT TO DO WITH IT?
As I child I
remember shows like Family Matters, Good Times and the Cosby show that would
not only embrace it celebrated, and embodied the ideal relationships. I look at Ike and Tina Turner story and the Color Purple, where abuse was acceptable. Men are not the only culprits, there are many women cheating on their husbands.
Now our society has turned into a Jerry Springer, Maury Povich, lie detector, paternity testing, side lover, main lover, and Love and Hip Hop world! A place where if you are not juggling multiple people or having some messy drama it is not love or normal. Media dictates a lot and programs the minds of millions.
Many of these current reality shows will have us as a society thinking that commitment is a bad and scary thing or something filled with constant drama. And some are okay being irresponsible and immature....the new breed society makes it easy. Leaving fatherless children, STD's and many single women struggling to raise children alone. No one is accountable, or responsible. Having five lovers at one time, or a new lover every three months...emotions are torn, spirits are broken, hearts are unhealed. The cycle continues.
Social media are the new dating sites. A fantasy world, where likes gratify the ego and provide instant validation. Filters make you beautiful. You can pretend and make believe. Social media has become a easy escape, accessibility to new lovers, re-connections, interconnections. We live in a duck and run...throw away dating society. If you have a string of failed relationships or constantly encountering the same problem. Maybe the problem does not exist externally. The problem may be you. Are you part of the solution or the problem you in your love life dilemmas?
What are you looking for in a mate? Some men are so blinded by looking for a fat ass they miss that she may be trifling. Women are so worried about what a man drives instead of what drives a man. The same ones holding up false appearances are the also some of the most insecure. You cannot put a filter on character. Negative energy is contagious.
Many of these current reality shows will have us as a society thinking that commitment is a bad and scary thing or something filled with constant drama. And some are okay being irresponsible and immature....the new breed society makes it easy. Leaving fatherless children, STD's and many single women struggling to raise children alone. No one is accountable, or responsible. Having five lovers at one time, or a new lover every three months...emotions are torn, spirits are broken, hearts are unhealed. The cycle continues.
Do you ever really heal? Are you choosing a partner out of love or loneliness?
Social media are the new dating sites. A fantasy world, where likes gratify the ego and provide instant validation. Filters make you beautiful. You can pretend and make believe. Social media has become a easy escape, accessibility to new lovers, re-connections, interconnections. We live in a duck and run...throw away dating society. If you have a string of failed relationships or constantly encountering the same problem. Maybe the problem does not exist externally. The problem may be you. Are you part of the solution or the problem you in your love life dilemmas?
What are you looking for in a mate? Some men are so blinded by looking for a fat ass they miss that she may be trifling. Women are so worried about what a man drives instead of what drives a man. The same ones holding up false appearances are the also some of the most insecure. You cannot put a filter on character. Negative energy is contagious.
I cannot explain love, nor its concept. That depends on your individual perception. I do know that love grows from a place of trust, safety, understanding, truth and acceptance. Are you getting the type of energy or "love" back that you are putting out? What are your standards?
Love is many things to many people. I know that for me love is not misery...Kindness, compassion, tolerance and forgiveness are at the cornerstones of unconditional love.
You have to ask yourself questions? Question your situation? Your motives? Your intentions? And vice versa.
TRUST:
Do I trust this person? Does this person trust me? Do I feel safe and secure with this person? Does this person fuel my insecurities and fears? Can I open up to this person? No one wants someone embarrassing them, or misusing their love or trust.
SAFETY:
Does this person have my back through thick and thin? Can I rely on this person? Emotionally. Spiritually. Mentally. Does this person respect me as a person? My boundaries? Does this person support me? Is this person helping me or hurting me? Are they enhancing the quality of my life? Do they compliment me or try to compete with me? Is this person an abuser? Scars from abuse are not always visible. Some of the most deepest wounds are not visible, but mental, spiritual, and emotional scarring.
UNDERSTANDING:
Do they "get it"? Does this person understand my life and where I would like to go? Does this person see me as objective or subjective? Are we on the same page? Are we even reading from the same book?
TRUTH:
Is this person honest? Are they allowing me to live my truth? Am I comfortable in the situation I am in? Am I happy? Do I see this person as a long term full time person in my life? You have to be honest with yourself before you can be honest with anyone else.
ACCEPTANCE:
Most important, what am I accepting? Am I accepting less than what I deserve? What are your receiving. And if you are asking more or expecting more, you must be willing to give that much. You cannot expect from someone what you are not willing to give.
Without those simple ingredients, or answers to those simple questions...no matter how functional or dysfunctional the relationship it will not last.
You cannot only think outside the box, you have to live outside the box in everything you do. We get one life to live, do not waste time on emotionally, spiritually and mentally draining drama!
Love is many things to many people. I know that for me love is not misery...Kindness, compassion, tolerance and forgiveness are at the cornerstones of unconditional love.
You have to ask yourself questions? Question your situation? Your motives? Your intentions? And vice versa.
TRUST:
Do I trust this person? Does this person trust me? Do I feel safe and secure with this person? Does this person fuel my insecurities and fears? Can I open up to this person? No one wants someone embarrassing them, or misusing their love or trust.
SAFETY:
Does this person have my back through thick and thin? Can I rely on this person? Emotionally. Spiritually. Mentally. Does this person respect me as a person? My boundaries? Does this person support me? Is this person helping me or hurting me? Are they enhancing the quality of my life? Do they compliment me or try to compete with me? Is this person an abuser? Scars from abuse are not always visible. Some of the most deepest wounds are not visible, but mental, spiritual, and emotional scarring.
UNDERSTANDING:
Do they "get it"? Does this person understand my life and where I would like to go? Does this person see me as objective or subjective? Are we on the same page? Are we even reading from the same book?
TRUTH:
Is this person honest? Are they allowing me to live my truth? Am I comfortable in the situation I am in? Am I happy? Do I see this person as a long term full time person in my life? You have to be honest with yourself before you can be honest with anyone else.
ACCEPTANCE:
Most important, what am I accepting? Am I accepting less than what I deserve? What are your receiving. And if you are asking more or expecting more, you must be willing to give that much. You cannot expect from someone what you are not willing to give.
Without those simple ingredients, or answers to those simple questions...no matter how functional or dysfunctional the relationship it will not last.
You cannot only think outside the box, you have to live outside the box in everything you do. We get one life to live, do not waste time on emotionally, spiritually and mentally draining drama!
What's Love Got to Do with It?
#LADYLOGIC
#LADIESLOGICALLYSPEAKING
