If you had to choose

[PrinceMyshkin]

being loving and being loved, which would you choose?

[TheFifthElement]

I think this is an impossible choice. How can one love, if one has never been loved? Only through one can you seek, and perhaps discover, the other.

[Sweets America]

That's a tough one. I guess I would refuse to choose, I want both. :D Because if you love someone without being loved in return you cannot really make anything out of this love, or maybe you can sublimate it in art. Now if you are loved but by someone you don't love in return, it does not bring anything great either. So, I won't choose.

[PrinceMyshkin]

I think this is an impossible choice. How can one love, if one has never been loved? Only through one can you seek, and perhaps discover, the other.

But most of us (hopefully) have been loved, as children and have felt something - gratitude? trust? - for one or both of our parents.


That's a tough one. I guess I would refuse to choose, I want both. :D Because if you love someone without being loved in return you cannot really make anything out of this love, or maybe you can sublimate it in art. Now if you are loved but by someone you don't love in return, it does not bring anything great either. So, I won't choose.

It interests me that both you and thefifth have in effect declined the choice. I hope that a few men as well as other women will respond so that we might see whether some generalization might be made.

[Sweets America]

It interests me that both you and thefifth have in effect declined the choice. I hope that a few men as well as other women will respond so that we might see whether some generalization might be made.

Even if 'a few' more people replied, you could never make any generalization unless you've asked every person on this planet. ;) Plus your generalization would only be valid for a very short time since the population is always changing, and moreover we don't have the same definitions of loving and being loved...

[Virgil]

I think this is an impossible choice. How can one love, if one has never been loved? Only through one can you seek, and perhaps discover, the other.

And how can one be loved if one is not loving? I agree an impossible choice. I refuse to choose too. ;)

[LadyW]

Can one be capable of love if one has never been loved? Or are we speaking purely ideologically here?
And if one was never loved, would they be loathed in its sted?
It's an interesting question you've posed... I'd have to choose "being loving." At least this way, I could understand the emotion and the sentiments it entails. Being loved without ever loving seems pointless... how could one who has never loved comprehend what others feel for them.

[PrinceMyshkin]

Even if 'a few' more people replied, you could never make any generalization unless you've asked every person on this planet. ;) Plus your generalization would only be valid for a very short time since the population is always changing, and moreover we don't have the same definitions of loving and being loved...

Ah, those are interesting generalizations that you make! Have you interviewed enough people to know how valid are your comments, because we live, I think, by making generalizations to one degree of depth or another. Every time you cross the street on a green light or decline to cross it on a red, you are acting on the basis of a generalization.

[Sweets America]

Oh, personally I think loving and being loved are not necessarily interdependent. I think one can love even if he/she has never been loved. Now some people might need to be loved in order to love, that's possible. When I started to love men, I loved them while no men had ever loved me before. Of course my parents had loved me before, but that is not the same kind of love and I still had this romantic love in myself that I wanted to give even if no one had manifested it towards me before.


Ah, those are interesting generalizations that you make! Have you interviewed enough people to know how valid are your comments, because we live, I think, by making generalizations to one degree of depth or another. Every time you cross the street on a green light or decline to cross it on a red, you are acting on the basis of a generalization.

I am not making any generalization. You know me, you should know that I never know if my comments are valid or not, here I just think that we're all so different and that things are not constant and that if we generalize something, the generalization might only last one second because the second after, the world and the thoughts will have changed again. Oh, I don't see what what you said about green lights had to do with generalizations.

EDIT: wait a minute, when I say 'everyone is different', I might be making a generalization, you're right! So, I will say, people are different from each other but among those different people, there are some who think the same way, but since the ones who think differently might change their minds to later agree with those they were different from in the beginning, then generalizations cannot last because we're not all constant. And what do you do with people like me who are always seeing the different sides of questions?

[blazeofglory]

being loving and being loved, which would you choose?

Is it not the same thing at the core, even with some superfine differences.

[sprinks]

I would not be able to choose either, because both are so very important to me. To me, life without love is not worth living; whether it be loving or being loved. :)

[Dori]

Oh, personally I think loving and being loved are not necessarily interdependent. I think one can love even if he/she has never been loved. Now some people might need to be loved in order to love, that's possible. When I started to love men, I loved them while no men had ever loved me before. Of course my parents had loved me before, but that is not the same kind of love and I still had this romantic love in myself that I wanted to give even if no one had manifested it towards me before.

Perhaps there were some men who kept their love to themselves. Or perhaps not...


Which one would I choose? Hmmm...I think I would choose being loving. Who doesn't love a loving person? :p

[Sweets America]

Perhaps there were some men who kept their love to themselves. Or perhaps not...

Ah, who knows...:p But it's ok now, I have somehow caught up with that. :D

[Niamh]

I think this is an impossible choice. How can one love, if one has never been loved? Only through one can you seek, and perhaps discover, the other.

Well said!

[PrinceMyshkin]

I am not making any generalization. You know me, you should know that I never know if my comments are valid or not, here I just think that we're all so different and that things are not constant and that if we generalize something, the generalization might only last one second because the second after, the world and the thoughts will have changed again. Oh, I don't see what what you said about green lights had to do with generalizations.

EDIT: wait a minute, when I say 'everyone is different', I might be making a generalization, you're right! So, I will say, people are different from each other but among those different people, there are some who think the same way, but since the ones who think differently might change their minds to later agree with those they were different from in the beginning, then generalizations cannot last because we're not all constant. And what do you do with people like me who are always seeing the different sides of questions?

You ask them, when their buttered toast falls to the floor, does it land on both sides at once?

[Sweets America]

You ask them, when their buttered toast falls to the floor, does it land on both sides at once?

I think it is kind of preposterous to choose because the purpose of love is to be shared. We spend most of our life loving without being loved and being loved without loving in return, and those are not choices, it's just how it is and that's very difficult to find someone you love and who loves you back. I guess that I sometimes love without being loved back because I still have the hope that I might be loved back someday. If that hope disappeared, I would go away from human beings because I guess one of the reasons I keep coming back to them is because I am searching for the one, somehow, or the ones, because the magic can happen several times, but differently.

[PrinceMyshkin]

I think it is kind of preposterous to choose because the purpose of love is to be shared.

The purpose of love, speaking from an evolutionary point of view, is to ensure the propagation of the species. Beyond that, as with religion, the only "purpose" is that which we assign to it.


We spend most of our life loving without being loved and being loved without loving in return, and those are not choices, it's just how it is and that's very difficult to find someone you love and who loves you back. I guess that I sometimes love without being loved back because I still have the hope that I might be loved back someday.

Perhaps loving is always in the hope of being loved in return. But my own preference - to love rather than to be loved, if I had only the one choice - is that when you are loved, you have little control over that. It was given to you and it can be removed, whereas no one can stop you from loving someone else - or even several others.


If that hope disappeared, I would go away from human beings because I guess one of the reasons I keep coming back to them is because I am searching for the one, somehow, or the ones, because the magic can happen several times, but differently.

[TheFifthElement]

Perhaps loving is always in the hope of being loved in return. But my own preference - to love rather than to be loved, if I had only the one choice - is that when you are loved, you have little control over that. It was given to you and it can be removed, whereas no one can stop you from loving someone else - or even several others.

Oh, but this says so much. Perhaps you are creating barriers for yourself by seeing being loved and loving as different things. There is only one thing love, the rest is just geography.

If you choose to be loving, then you must also be loving to yourself.

By being loving towards yourself you must allow yourself to be loved.

You see, it is all the same thing.

Ask yourself a different question, ask yourself: if you choose to love, rather than be loved, does this prevent someone who loves you, from loving you? You see love being removed, but perhaps there is no removal, perhaps it just can't get through?

[Sweets America]

The purpose of love, speaking from an evolutionary point of view, is to ensure the propagation of the species. Beyond that, as with religion, the only "purpose" is that which we assign to it.
Let's say I'm only speaking for myself because I cannot say what the true purpose of love us, you're right, I cannot even say it has a purpose.


Perhaps loving is always in the hope of being loved in return. But my own preference - to love rather than to be loved, if I had only the one choice - is that when you are loved, you have little control over that. It was given to you and it can be removed, whereas no one can stop you from loving someone else - or even several others.

Ok, I understand the explanation, I should have thought of your need to control things.:D But I don't think we have real control over the love we give either. No one can stop us from loving someone else, but that's the only thing about it, because apart from that, there's no control I think.

[aabbcc]

Would you rather have loved and lost, or never have loved in the first place?

Regarding the original question... Be loved. Yes, I'm a coward. Yell at me.

[Lioness_Heart]

When you love someone, it makes you happy... at least until you find out they don't really care about you. But in a way, that happiness is worth it, despite the pain it brings.

[PrinceMyshkin]

Would you rather have loved and lost, or never have loved in the first place?

Regarding the original question... Be loved. Yes, I'm a coward. Yell at me.

Anastasija!

[amanda_isabel]

i really don;t want to discuss on this whole thing.. i would like to be loved right now since i'e been living in the sphere of unrequited love for some time now... and as far as loving goes, i'm either there or i'm not. at least that part i have just a tiny bit of control over.

[Madhuri]

Be loved.

If I love someone without being loved back, I am sure it will be very painful for me. I will always be trying to please that person so that he loves me back. I may loose my own self in that process......ummm...that is not something that I want.

But if I am being loved, even if I dont love back, I will be appreciative of the affection that is being give to me....

This is how it will be with me..... I think... :)

[Pensive]

Without much thought, be loved.

Why? Now that requires some thinking. Well, you see in this way I can prevent myself from choosing to torture my own self. Wouldn't be self-abusing at least. As for others, who, if in love, would be in pain, well they chose it themselves! Yeah and seeing other people torturing themselves for you can be real fun....

[Dori]

Without much thought, be loved.

Why? Now that requires some thinking. Well, you see in this way I can prevent myself from choosing to torture my own self. Wouldn't be self-abusing at least. As for others, who, if in love, would be in pain, well they chose it themselves! Yeah and seeing other people torturing themselves for you can be real fun....

It's not exactly a choice, I think. ;)

[RJbibliophil]

I think this is an impossible choice. How can one love, if one has never been loved? Only through one can you seek, and perhaps discover, the other.

Very true, after all, "we love because God first loved us." But assuming my life would not be void of being loved, I enjoy loving other people. It is so amazing to pour myself out serving and when I think I cannot go on, I find that I can.

[Pensive]

It's not exactly a choice, I think. ;)

'Exactly' is an interesting term. And in my eyes, love that isn't based upon our choice and doesn't influence it is a kind of betraying its own principles; isn't significant. ;)

Anyhow I didn't choose it for them either! So why trouble myself over the world problems? Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeees, that's an evil person speaking who loves to see people torture themselves....hmmm....it's sweet...

[Annamariah]

Anyhow I didn't choose it for them either! So why trouble myself over the world problems? Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeees, that's an evil person speaking who loves to see people torture themselves....hmmm....it's sweet...

I like your evil way of thinking :D I'd like to be loved too, if I really had to make a choice. (Not like it's something you could ever choose, so the whole question is highly hypothetical...)

[Scorpio Ascendant]

I've been loved all my life to the point of madness. I want to know what it's like to love.

[Lulya]

I think if you are really in love , like you love some one,so you will be loved by this persion who you love..mmm that's what I think

[V.Jayalakshmi]

Dear Members,

I think the difficulty of choice occurs because of the association this word 'Love' has in English.By 'Love'it is often assumed it is the love between man and woman.Supposing the word also means 'love' between mother and son or father and daughter and other combinations in familial love then even if a father did not love his son the son might still love the father?So also with other combinations.Only in man/woman love ,this need to get love back when giving love is always present.In various spiritual/philosophic connotations too 'love' is never a two way need.They all say give 'love' without expectations.I know!It is difficult.

[Oniw17]

Is there really an emotional feeling of being loved? I don't think I really get anything out of it. I guess if people gave you stuff it would be cool, but I think I'd have to go with loving.