The best time you've ever had...

[Lark]

Do you think this is a good definition of love?

 

[ceecee]

No. Love isn't always the best time you ever had, occasionally far from it.

 

[highlander]

No. Though I think there is probably a correlation.

Freshman year of college is the best time I ever had. I guess I did fall in love for the first time that year and that certainly had a fair amount to do with it. A lot of it though was also about freedom and independence, getting my first job, meeting new people and enjoying the intellectual challenge of college.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Probably junior year of high school. As pathetic as it sounds, everthing was downhill from that. I miss that confident, slightly arrogant person who still believed in things that I used to be. Who I grew into sucks by comparison.

 

[1487610420]

ur mom

 

[Cellmold]

I remember it well, there I was in a comfortable, red-walled slumber, no one could bother me and I had all the time in the relative universe. I could have stayed in that half- baked contemplative state for an eternity.

But it was not to be, my cavernous retreat started to move and vibrate and some invisible force beyond the ken of mortal men did jolt me from my reverie. Soon I was pulled with force along a dark and forbidding corridor as I fought with all my strength.

Eventually I saw something, a brightness framing an exit, illuminating and inviting. Was this to be my nirvana? I decided not to fight anymore and let it pull me towards whatever fate awaited me.

Strange creatures greeted me at the exit and they grasped me with firm but gentle insistence, though I could not seem to communicate with them.

As I was pulled up and out of my comfort, I thought for a brief second that I had arrived at some wonderful paradise of opportunity.

Then someone hit me.....

 

[Lark]

No. Though I think there is probably a correlation.

Freshman year of college is the best time I ever had. I guess I did fall in love for the first time that year and that certainly had a fair amount to do with it. A lot of it though was also about freedom and independence, getting my first job, meeting new people and enjoying the intellectual challenge of college.

One of the years I studied at university was the best year of my life really, I already had a very good knowledge of my subjects and as a result could dedicate a lot of time to the pretty thriving student community, there was a seriously diverse amount of activities to do any night of the week, three or four bars on campus and I made some good friends (but never kept in touch with them) but it didnt have anything to do with love.

I heard this quoted in a film and didnt think it rang true.

 

[Mole]

Do you think this is a good definition of love?

Falling in love is one of our life goals. And falling in love is deeply profound which touches our archetypes taking us to a new level of maturity.

So failing to fall in love is to fail one of our life goals and a failure to realise one of our deeply rooted archetypes.

And it is interesting that falling in love is common across different cultures, which leads us to realise we have been selected by natural selection to fall in love.

And indeed we do fall. We fall from the fully developed frontal cortex, we fall from the command and control centre of our brain, and we are entranced by falling in love, we become suggestible, and the boundaries between us and our beloved dissolve. We enter a temporary state of nirvana.

And falling in love can reveal to us our true character. Some of us respond nobly and some respond as low opportunists, but however we respond, it leaves its mark.

If we wish to fall in love, beware of what we wish for.

 

[Trash Panda]

For some people, maybe.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

I think in my earlier post, I was thinking about life in general. Because, in truth, I was single at the time I mentioned. I had someone I had a crush on, who I never dated, but in retrospect, that person would have been terrible for me, had it ever been reciprocated. She just happened to look the part.

Regarding love, it's weird, because it's what I've sought out for a long time, but reflecting upon what has actually made me the happiest, and when I've been the most content, it's had nothing to do with romantic relationships.

There's also a really cynical part of me that thinks that the desiring of someone is actually a more pleasurable experience than actually having someone. I mean, who can compete with the idealized version of a person your mind creates? Can anyone actually be that awesome? I guess this is sort of anti-Buddhist, in that desire is not the cause of suffering, but the cause of pleasure, and perhaps the highest forum of pleasure.

 

[Hitoshi-San]

it was freshman year of high school for me. looking back on it since times have changed there are things that I kind of go eeeeehhhhh at but I miss the vibe. it had little to nothing to do with love.

I think if love totally sucks and there's not much to appreciate about your experience with it you really need to reevaluate it, but it doesn't need to be the best aspect of your life. but if it is and you're not becoming overly obsessed with it to the point where your love life is the only part of your life, I don't see where there's a problem with it.

 

[Cloudpatrol]

The adjective "best" is a superlative and no romantic relationship can (or should) exist in only a preeminent state.

Amazing times can be had with friends, animals, on one's own, with family or strangers. I don't consider any of the 'top level' times I have experienced to be matchless. They were great and treasured, but I still always know there is more waiting just around the corner

 

[Mole]

Do you think this is a good definition of love?

Falling in love is a bit like stretching yourself, it is a bit like giving birth to something new and unknown, and we feel the pangs of birth, we feel the birth pangs. At the same time we don't know what is going on because we are entranced by our beloved and our critical thinking temporarily falls asleep, so we really don't know what is going on, and if by some miracle in another dimension, we did know what was going on, we would be appalled, shocked and realise the psychological danger we are in, as we expose ourselves to the naked psyche of another.

But we are gloriously deceived by nature as we fall in love, we tend to be focused on the immediate bodily presence of our beloved, and we tend to be completely blind to their psyche.

But make no mistake, we are profoundly influenced by the psyche of our beloved for good or ill.

 

[LovecraftianMonstrosity]

No, when I read the thread title I actually thought about a time when I was finishing work for the day on a rooftop in Malibu just as the sunset was hitting. It was such a beautiful sight with a feeling of accomplishment after a hard day of work, one of those "picture perfect" moments.

 

[Typh0n]

Yes, if we're talking about a happy relationship. No if we're talking about loving a person who doesn't love you back, or even about two people who love each other, but misunderstand each other, too.