Before moving on from the topic of love, there is one more aspect that I need to address: love is asymmetrical. To really understand the significance of this feature, I will need to elaborate.

When I love my car, it may seem too obvious to comment that the car probably does not love me back. This is the simplest way to describe the asymmetry of love; the appreciation that exists on one side of the equation seldom matches the appreciation on the other side. I love my car. My car does not love me. However, this very simple and obvious discussion belays another detail that I have not really highlighted: is love something I have for someone/something else, or is it something shared between two entities? This question is a little harder to answer.

Try as I might, I am sure that in my previous blog posts I have introduced confusion by not being clear about where the love is. Most of the time, I have spoken of love as being the appreciation I have for another entity. Sometimes, I seem to have described it as being something shared between two entities. So which is it? For my purposes, I prefer to focus on the former, love being something I possess but not necessarily that the other entity has. The example above of the love of my car is a good example of this. The love that may exist between two human subjects seems like it isn’t the same at all.

However, the love between two comparable individuals is really just their respective love for each other. In the ideal, true love is often viewed as the mutual loves that the individuals have for each other. When subject A loves subject B, and subject B loves subject A, then I would like to say that they share a love. But just because they share a love doesn’t mean that the love that each has for the other is the same. In fact, it has been my experience that in any relationship between individuals, one always loves the other a bit more than the reverse. This observation often seems to lead to an imbalance of power between the individuals. For a long time, I held onto a quote that said “the one with the least interest in a relationship has the more control over that relationship.” This is an actual sociological idea, which you can read more about here.

Putting aside the discussion of power dynamics, this suggests that the love I have for another entity is not the same as the love the other entity has for me. Thinking on this, it makes a lot of sense. After all, I am a unique individual with my own personal history and my own genetics. It is unlikely my “situation” (as Simone de Beauvoir describes it) is going to be the same as any others’ “situation.” As such, my appreciation for others will be based on slightly different criteria, related to slightly different experiences, and even simply on differing genetic tastes. In this way, in the case of two entities loving each other, there will naturally be an asymmetry between those loves.

Ultimately, this suggests a mistake by people when they believe that love shared between two individuals is a single, monolithic construct. Furthermore, as each individual’s love for the other changes with time, the nature of their shared love too will change with time. If subject A loves subject B more than subject B loves subject A at a particular time, it is entirely possible that subject B will love subject A more at a later time. So not only is there a mistake in understanding love as a single monolithic construct shared between individuals due to the differences in those individuals, but the construct itself is fluid as each individual changes with time. Love, regardless of how you understand it, is far from static.

For all these reasons, I prefer not to discuss love as the shared thing between individuals, but instead as the appreciation of one individual for another entity. I think it further makes sense to think in these terms as love understood in this way can be built upon to describe the shared experience between individuals. It is much harder to coherently divide up a monolithic construct into smaller parts, especially when the understanding of the monolith is that it is a uniform, solid, atomic element.

Tying this all together with my previous posts, we find that love is a very personal experience. It is an expression of my freedom, a reflection of my personal history, and often times a subjugation to my genetics. This does not suggest that my love for others doesn’t affect their love for me. On the contrary, it is quite nice to be loved by others, and when others love me, I tend to reciprocate. This simple fact likely led to ideas such as the Golden Rule. However, it is important to recognize that the pleasure I experience at being loved leads to a reciprocity, and not the other way around. I do not reciprocate love before I am loved. I can love someone, expressing my appreciation for them, without the need for them to love me back. This again is the expression described by my love of my car.

Why is this all important? Why should my reader take all this seriously? Management of Expectations. All too often I have observed people with unreasonable expectations of their intimate partners and even of simple objects, such as cars. In the case of a car, it is fine to love a car, but one should always remember it is just a car. A car is an inanimate object, that is, it is a thing that cannot express a freedom or reciprocate love. It is good to respect your car, performing the regular maintenance and not driving it recklessly, because doing so will allow the car to exist much longer than if you did not do these things. But a car is just a car, and it can easily be replaced by another car.

Relationships with other people is exponentially more complicated. People are capable of expressing freedom and can reciprocate love. In fact, most people express freedom, even if it is just a little. The good slave who does his best to submit to the commands of his master will still express some freedom from time to time, even in the most basic decision making, trying to determine what he thinks will please his master. I do not think it is even possible for a human to not express freedom in their lives. The expression of an individual’s freedom is also what makes loving them challenging, as my appreciation for them can grow or wane based on their expressions of freedom.

To put this in another way, if my appreciation for another individual is based on their physical appearance, then my appreciation will change as their physical appearance changes. As they grow older, I may find them more attractive, or I may find them less attractive. In either case, my love for them, if it is based in eros like this, will not remain the same over time. Similarly if my appreciation is based on other aspects of their individuality. And as I suggested in a previous post that there is no static aspect of an individual, my appreciation will remain fluid regardless of what aspect I chose to base my appreciation on.

If I decide at the outset that love is a monolithic, unchanging, eternal, universal construct, then I will always be disappointed when I discover that it is not. If I expect that those that I love will love me in return in equal measure, I will be disappointed. If I make love out to be the most powerful force in the universe, able to break down barriers of time and space, I will live a life of misery as I am never able to attain such a love. I believe this is the sort of misery that many people experience, especially in their early adult lives, trying desperately to find fulfilling relationships with other people. Always looking for the Bigger Better Deal (BBD); always looking for the perfect relationship partner. The fact is, no such thing exists.

This may sound pretty bleak, but I assure you it isn’t. I found the “perfect” partner in my life, not because she is perfect in every way. She is “perfect” because I understand that she is a conscious entity that is capable of expressing a freedom, pursuing projects, and who cares about her world and those who inhabit it. She is “perfect” because I understand all of this, and I can express my love for her by helping her express her freedom, and I can provide support when she pursues projects. What makes her “perfect” has nothing to do with her physical appearance, nor does it have to do with her fondness for pineapples. She is “perfect” because I say she is, and it is my expression of my freedom to do so.

Love is a choice, because from the available options I have before me, I choose which path to follow. It is a choice because I must choose the path I follow. Even not selecting a path is a choice, the choice not to choose and let “fate” decide for me, which upon “allowing fate to decide,” I simply choose the path that was suggested. Like if I were standing at an ice cream stand trying to decide what flavour of ice cream to get, so I ask my buddy who suggests I get chocolate, so I then ask the server for chocolate ice cream.

However, love is more complicated than purchasing ice cream. I cannot simply get it, and then my ice cream issues are resolved for good. I cannot order ice cream and expect to have that ice cream forever. Whether I like it or not, the ice cream will slowly melt if I leave it unattended (faster if it is particularly warm out). I could place it in my freezer to try to preserve it, but then the ice cream will degrade over time there too. The freezer helps, but it doesn’t prevent my ice cream from degrading eventually. I can choose to eat it, enjoying it in the moment, or I can save it for later, when it will not quite be the same as it was in the moment.

Another thing I might consider is reconstituting the ice cream. I could rebuild it, or reinforce it. Make it better, or even simply maintain it through some strange process. This is where the analogy to ice cream starts to break down. After all, have you ever heard of someone “maintaining” their ice cream? Love is certainly not ice cream, though in the moment, it might seem like it.

Perhaps a better analogy is fire; love is like fire, burning fuel to maintain its energetic form. But that becomes key to the situation; there is fuel needed to keep the fire burning. Take the fuel away, and the fire is extinguished. When the fuel is used up, more fuel must be added, lest the fire is extinguished again. I can start a new fire if the old one goes out, but then it is a new fire and not the old fire. They may appear the same, providing warmth and light, but they are not quite the same. In fact, it seems like the fire isn’t the same from moment to moment either. Its shape and size are constantly changing, which alters the amount of warmth and light it provides from moment to moment. Fire is the epitome of change.

Like fire, love too needs fuel to burn. Love’s fuel is effort and interest. Interest is the part most people, I think, are already familiar with. When I talk about “love and first sight,” I am talking about interest; I am fond of that person’s appearance, and so I love them. But this sort of love is in the moment again. This is eros. My interest is transitory, and may fade as their appearance changes with time. If my interest fades, I’ve heard people say that it “wasn’t really love, because true love doesn’t fade.” True love, it seems, is eternal and infinite.

If true love is to be eternal and infinite (at least as far as I am able to confirm it is), it will have to last as long as I am able to confirm it. This amounts to the love lasting as long as I am still alive. If I stoke my love with effort, I can maintain it for as long as I wish, but then my love is not as simple as mere eros. My love must be something a bit different.

I can still have a love based on eros, but then my appreciation will have something to do with the changing nature of my subject’s immediate features. It cannot be those features themselves, unless I change what I appreciate with every passing moment. Perhaps that is the point though. Perhaps I ought to change what I consider to be beauty with every changing moment. If I do this, then my love will last much longer.

Alternatively, I could choose to appreciate more mediate features of my subject, features that are less susceptible to change. Internal qualities seem less prone to change, but they are not as static as I might want to believe. I am not the man I was 20 years ago. I value different things; desire different things. As my subject changes, so too do I change. It would be so much easier if my subject and I didn’t have to keep changing over time.

This then is the key to a lasting love, or “true love,” as I’ve often heard it described. Not to attempt to find that which does not change, as there is nothing in this world that does not change. I could choose to do as Plato did and fabricate an imaginary realm of unchanging Forms to appreciate, but then I would not love anything about this world. If I claimed to love something about this world, really all I’d have admitted is that I love the world only inasmuch as it resembles the Forms; it is the Forms that I truly love.

To love in a changing world requires me to put an effort into my act of loving. Like the fire, I have to keep adding fuel to my love. I have to keep putting an effort into love to maintain it. My love will last forever, if I forever make an effort in my love. The day that I stop doing this, my love is lost. Of course, there are those who will simply tell me, then it was never love at all.

In my previous post, I suggested that love is a journey. Those who have spoken with me in person will know that I have also frequently stated that love is a choice. In this post, I will elaborate on how these two statements are connected.

In any journey, I can choose to follow the most efficient path that connects where I am to where I wish to go. I can also choose any number of alternative paths, each of which will be less efficient than the first. I have already discussed why I think less efficient paths may be preferable to more efficient paths, but what I did not focus on was the fact that I am choosing between paths. Putting this another way, why I choose one path over another is just as significant as the path I choose, perhaps more so.

In a previous post, I discussed the relationship between choice and freedom or free will. How the ability to make a choice is tied with some sort of freedom. That is to say, I must be free to make a choice, otherwise the idea of choice does not itself make sense. In the case of my journey, I must be free to choose which path I am to take toward my destination. The question I might ask is whether there are cases when I am not free to choose the path I take.

In one sense, the situation I have presented seems impossible. I am always able to choose my path, even in cases where I may not like the particular choices I have laid out in front of me. When I have a gun pointed to my head, I am still able to choose not to follow the commands issued to me, even though my choice may result in the end of my life. However, I think the more productive way to view this situation is as a limiting of the particular paths available to select from. The individual holding a gun to my head may not literally be forcing me to make a particular choice, but they are certainly limiting the sorts of choice I am able to make. In particular, they have provided a choice that includes the end of my life, a choice that may not have been present before the situation I find myself in.

It is at this point considering Simone de Beauvoir is helpful, particularly her view of one’s “situation.” For Beauvoir, my situation includes the brute facts about my existence. For example, that I am perceived to be male by those around me in part makes up my situation. However, it is important to understand that my situation is much more than simply that I am part of the category “man;” it also includes all the privileges I have as a result of this brute fact. My being a man allows me access to parts of this world that those who are in the category of “woman” have no access to. For example, late at night, if I wish to go for a walk down the dark streets of my neighborhood, it is part of my selection of choices that I can do so without having to fear for my life or for other possible abuses. This is not so for most women; due to the cultural training instilled in most young girls, it is considered incredibly dangerous to be alone on a dark street at night. This example is a bit of an oversimplification, as I could still be mugged by some thief, and there are certainly some women that I know who have no fear of dark streets. However, the point to be understood here is that there is clearly something different going on between myself and the typical woman. Where I may have very little fear of a negative incident occurring, for the woman the threat seems to be much higher.

It is this very complicated set of circumstances and facts about me that make up my situation. Another way to describe my situation is to suggest that my situation has a direct bearing on the sorts of projects I can easily take up, and what projects are not really available to me. Another example might include whether I am able to attend a university in order to earn a degree of some kind. If I come from a wealthy, well connected family, not only is going to university an easily attainable project I can undertake, I will likely have many options for which university I wish to attend. On the contrary, if I come from a poor family, where we are barely able to afford to put food on the table from month to month, the opportunity of attending university may not really present a live option. In these two situations, the paths that are available to me to select from are different, regardless of the final destination that I may have in mind.

Tying this back to the topic of love, my options for whom to pursue a relationship with are limited by my situation as well. In my youth, my friends and I would ogle the busty celebrities of our time, often fantasizing about being with those women and even possessing them. It seems to me this sort of fantasizing is not uncommon and continues for many men well into their later years. This itself speaks volumes regarding the situation a typical man finds himself in. No matter how much fantasizing I did, and no matter what sorts of choices I might make, the probability of me meeting the “girl of my dreams” and possessing her are virtually zero. It is not really a live choice for me to make, nor is it a reasonable path for me to choose. Instead, more reasonable choices existed in the girls who attended my high school with me.

To be clear, I no longer condone this sort of behavior at all. This cultural phenomenon, which often is described as a part of the system of patriarchy, is something I consider reprehensible today. My present journey is one where I hope to change my world to reflect a more empathetic view of life, with compassion toward all beings, not just the human ones. But that is also my history, and to dismiss it would be to ignore an important aspect of my situation. I am who I am today because I was what I was in the past.

This also leads to the other concern I might raise at this point, regarding the pursuit of partnerships, regardless of the sex or gender of the other party. The desire most of us have to find another individual that we expect to spend the better part of our lives with, so that we are not “alone.” This was recently raised to me in a discussion regarding what constitutes a “family” in various surveys (the current definition of family in this circumstance was a military man, a civilian woman, and two civilian children). While I agree that the current definition is clearly weak, not encompassing many of the groups that I would consider to be a family, the concern I want to raise is in the desire for there to be a family unit, regardless of its specific composition. That there be families as the most basic unit of partnership among the population, instead of more complex groupings that blur the lines between “whose children belong to whom.” This is a topic I will have to address in another post.

My situation includes an aspect that suggests I need to be in a partnership with exactly one other individual. Furthermore, the “preferred” other individual is expected to be of a sex and gender that is opposite to mine. Furthermore, it is expected that I will reproduce with that other individual and produce at least two offspring. All of these things lead into the expectation that I must find love. And all of this significantly affects the sorts of paths I have to select between. If I accept these expectations, placed upon me by the society and world I belong to, then my choice for whom to love becomes limited by various prospects, such as needing to find a partner who is a woman, of “breeding” age, and who is “attainable” by my social status. Furthermore, I should entirely dismiss and reject any individuals who would contradict these mandates. In other words, I certainly should not fall in love with a man, a woman who is infertile, or a dog. My choices for love are already incredibly limited.

As with all things, our world is not filled with black and white choices, and most people find grey within their limited selection of paths. For example, some individuals do fall in love with dogs, though they do not expect to reproduce with those dogs, nor do they expect to engage in sexual relationships with those dogs. However, what the have with those dogs I would still consider love, and I think most people would agree with me. Their partnership is the sort of partnership where they look out for each other, as much as they each are able, and they do their best to provide a happy life to their partner. Isn’t that what we would like to think love is all about?

Love is a choice. It is a very complicated choice based on our very unique situations and circumstances, limited by our cultures and societies. We engage with some potential partners and dismiss others, most of the time at an unconscious level. I could not possibly love this rock, after all, it isn’t even alive. In the next post I will continue to elaborate on how it is not just a choice at the outset, but it is an ongoing choice as well.