<p>Have you ever fallen in Love? Do you know what Love is?</p>
<p>Plenty of teenagers have had significant others, but how many of those "I love yous" at the end of each phone conversation are not only meant, but true?</p>
<p>I have seen so many relationships rise - and rise they did; to the very pinnacle of hormonally driven entanglement, infatuation, care, and despair - only to one day fall in the blink of an eye. Two people you could call lovers, pushed over an edge; their fiery passion turned to cold disregard and bitter resentment faster than you would have thought possible. </p>
<p>Sound familiar? I'm sure to many it does. I've seen it happen all around me, and yes it's happened to me too. Did I tell her I loved her? Yes. Did I mean it? Perhaps.
But was it love? This girl is no longer a part of my life. How can I claim to have loved her when every day we go about our separate lives; when even eye contact between us is all but forbidden?</p>
<p>For the longest time I struggled with myself regarding the true meaning of love. But this thread isn't about me.</p>
<p>Have any of us young people found true love? I won't try and elaborate with a definition; I'll leave it up to each of you to define it for yourselves.</p>
<p>I had this conversation with my ex a long time ago. We kept on telling ourselves we didn't know what love was and that we were teenagers and just acting on something we thought was love... until one day I told him to look at our relationship and tell me it wasn't love.</p>
<p>Then we realized it was. In a sense, love appears in different forms at different stages of life. Love as teenagers is different from love as a married couple, but it's still a strong mutual attraction between two individuals. It just took a while for my friend and I to recognize that fact after we found out we liked each other.</p>
<p>That is my definition of love. Even though my friend and I aren't together anymore, I don't think we can ever deny we weren't in love at some point and time as high school students.</p>
<p>I don't think you can know true love as a high schooler.</p>
<p>You can be in love, and know that you love them more than absolutely everything and it is pure love, but true love is another stage. Even if you are absolutely in love and not lust after going out exclusively for 3 wonderful years or w/e while still in high school.</p>
<p>It's rather amazing, but one day it just "clicks", and you know they are your soulmate. Might happen at different times for everyone but I think maybe in high school your world is kind of stagnant in the scheme of things, and you get to see your sweetheart every day. The transition to college is a bit more dynamic.</p>
<p>I'm not knocking high school love, it can be the real deal under the right circumstances, but I don't think it has blossomed into true love just yet.</p>
<p>I'd say "true love" is a product of having spent enough of your life with someone to feel as if he or she is undoubtedly the person you care most about in this world. Two 18-year-olds who've only been going out for a year can't know true love, but neither can two 40-year-olds who've only been going out for a year.</p>
<p>In other words, simply being older doesn't inherently make you any more cognizant of true love. I'm sure divorce races can testify to that.</p>
<p>The weird thing for me is that I have had fairly long-term relationships in the past, and I have always been careful to never say "I love you" because I really never did love anyone. I think in the rarest of the rare cases, true love can occur, but almost always, hormones are the main culprit, as stated by Hillary. </p>
<p>However, I feel that teenagers often do feel slight tinges of love. Until very recently, I have never felt any of this, nor believed it, but I believe it consists of truly liking someone regardless of physical/sexual desires, but it is likely still a product of hormonal issues.</p>
<p>Lastly, I feel that only about 10-20% of human adults have ever felt true love. As I look at the parent in my town, I can honestly see which ones truly love each other and which ones do not. Honestly, I do not see myself leading a content life without someone that I truly love... /endrant.</p>
<p>i think love in high school is very possible. i consider myself in love with my bf
basically we grew up together and dated in 7th grade. we broke up in 9th grade because our parents wouldnt let us be together in high school -_- [dumb. thought it'd interfere with our grades]. he basically moved 8 hours away from me [san francisco] and we still liked each other when we were apart. he drove all the way over to my high school just to ask me to my prom last year. then of course he drove all the way over here again, 2 weeks later when it was prom night -.- were juniors now. he got C's in middle school and he has a 4.3 right now basically so he can get accepted to any school he wants and be with me. if thats not love i dont know what is.</p>
<p>idk theres alot of gushy stories between us, but i thought the prom one showed alot.</p>
<p>according to many philosophies, all human love is conditional. you love someone for a reason. they're smart, athletic, beautiful, funny, kind, helped you out, etc. i don't think people are capable of unconditional love.</p>
<p>eh. i think my boyfriend does love me unconditionally..
i mean i was reeaaaallly ugly in 7th grade when he first asked me out. like im not even exaggerating. my mom cut my hair right below my ears [as punishment] because i got bad grades and i do not pull off the sexy boy look [ex: saleisha - americas next top model cycle 9]</p>
<p>then i treated him like crap and blew him off in 8th grade tons of times but he still stuck with me.</p>
<p>I don't think unconditional *anything<a href="if%20we're%20using%20the%20normal%20denotation%20of%20%22unconditional%22%20and%20not%20the%20connotation%20normally%20ascribed%20to%20relationships">/I</a> can exist. That would be irrational. </p>
<p>On the other hand, Plato would argue that love is irrational because it isn't egocentric and thus debilitating to our *own<a href="not%20our%20species">/I</a> longevity. </p>
<p>Philosophy time over. Let's introduce biochem.</p>
<p>All love (and feeling) is brought about through chemical reactions (e.g. hormones). Therefore, for true love to exist, we have to redefine it as something that includes this bit of chemistry (and isn't simply the "unconditional" love spoken of earlier). Therefore, we will define "true love" as that feeling of reverence (ref. Plato) and protection (any lover will say that he will die for his beloved, correct?). With that being said, I would say that it is possible for a high schooler to feel true love, because nothing prevents us from fulfilling those two perquisites. </p>
<p>Or we can just say that true love is when you climb the side of your girlfriend's house in the middle of the night to comfort her.</p>
<p>I don't think platonic love and romantic love are really that different. Once the heat fades from romantic love, the relationship becomes one of platonic love. If once the heat fades, the couple falls apart, they weren't romantically in love in the first place.
No one would ever say that a teenager is incapable of loving friends and family. Most people I know are friends with someone before they get together. They usually aren't the closest of friends, not like friends who would love each other, but I see no reason why, further along in the relationship, they couldn't love each other as friends do. Boyfriends and girlfriends who have been together for 3 years (some people I know have been together that long, some for 5+, esp. since my school is a 6 year high school) have been friends for the length of their relationship, if not more. Most people love people with whom they've been friends for three years, so why wouldn't you love your significant other?</p>
<p>ive always defined loving someone as meaning your life would change significantly if they were to disappear forever. all the relationships ive had in the past could never be love because when they leave you or you leave them or you never see them again, your life doesn't really CHANGE. most people love their parents. if your mother died today your life would never be the same because you lost someone you LOVED. conversely, if your girlfriend of 3 months moved to the opposite end of the world you might shed a tear or be depressed for a week or two but in general your life would not change in any significant way. that is, however, one guy's definition of love but it's mine so to me, a teenager cannot really know true love. then again, as someone else said, adults who have only been together for a year or so cannot either. love is something you have for those around you who make your life the way it is, not only someone romantically linked to you. too many poeple throw around the "i love you" without really realizing what that means. thats why i never say it to just some girl i might hook up with for a night, a week, a month, etc.</p>
<p>I am in love, true love. If you didn't love somebody there is no way that you could stay in a long-term relationship with them (long term meaning at least more than a year).</p>
<p>I like to think it's possible [though rare]. but who knows if it can exist to the extent of my favorite movie couples. hell, that's what i aspire to :)</p>