<p>Baby don't hurt me</p>
<p>
[quote]
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?
[/quote]
I think it's definitely possible to find true love as a teenager. The biggest problem is, teenagers change so much after high school. While it's possible to find true love, it's significantly less possible to stay like that, not because kids are flaky (though we are definitely known to be), but because they or their significant other will probably end up being completely different from the person the other fell in love with.</p>
<p>My two cents.
Alex</p>
<p>i keep wanting to troll this thread but not being able to think of anything clever to say, so i guess i'll answer it seriously: </p>
<p>from a literal & physical perspective, "love" is just a combination of complex neurological reactions, just like any other emotion, blah blah blah. i won't elaborate; that's pretty clear-cut.</p>
<p>however, if we want to define love in a more abstract sense, i guess i can see why young people are so often regarded as less capable of 'true love.' one is that we are so fickle -- so quick to dive into 'love' and so quick to fall out of it. a result of our hormones, presumably. but i don't doubt the intensity of our feelings. i don't think that we're feeling anything less than what adults feel. we're probably feeling more, sometimes -- again, hormones. (& when i say 'hormones' i'm not only talking about sexual urges. hormones do a lot more than that.) so the difference doesn't lie in the strength of the feelings -- just in the speed with which they come. and disappear.</p>
<p>in addition to the fact that we're so hasty to find ourselves in 'love' and to renounce it just as quickly, which undoubtedly detracts from our credibility, i'd guess that our (and i'm speaking generally) lack of maturity contributes. what really constitutes 'true love' is an arbitrary judgment, of course, and most definitions revolve somewhat around maturity. selflessness. willingness to compromise. the desire to raise a family. the desire to build a life together. these are just a few of the things commonly associated with love; and adults, who are older, have experienced more, and are closer to the 'settling down' stage of life than we teenagers are, are more inclined to fit these characteristics. but no matter what one's personal definition is (unless it explicitly includes an age limit), there are bound to be exceptions -- teenagers whose relationships do fit the bill. it's just more rare, based on the nature of most people's opinions as to what 'love' really encompasses. </p>
<p>all that aside, i'll tell you what my weak abstract definition of love includes. </p>
<p>-- MUTUAL RESPECT.
-- (this comes as a result of the first, so should go without saying, but i'll elaborate anyways.) each partner has the ability to bring the other down -- to make them feel worthless -- but does not use it.
-- similar wavelengths. this isn't something that works for everyone, but to me it's essential. i love it when he knows exactly what i'm thinking, or when i can say something that would make no sense to anyone else and he understands. and (hopefully) i have the same skills when it comes to him. even when we first met, it was like we were the same person under different circumstances. i see where the word 'soulmate' came from... it's really applicable in some cases if you strip it of its metaphysical implications.
-- physical attraction, of course.
-- the desire to spend forever together. to accomplish your goals together (and to assist one another in this). to bring life into the world (if that, of course, is a goal that aligns with both partners').
-- enough differences and unpredictability to keep things interesting. love fades so easily.</p>
<p>i'm not sure if this is true of everyone, but i've recently found this in someone, & it's something that's really important to me.</p>
<p>-- each individual's "character flaws" do not pose a threat to the relationship. either the partner appreciates them (i have found someone who loves about me all of the things that others in the past have hated), or s/he will gently help the other person reform.</p>
<p>I think teenagers can know true love but they're more fickle with it than adults (having raging hormones and all).</p>
<p>ehehehe you summarized my whole 7 page post in one sentence :3</p>
<p>lmao .</p>
<p>i accidentally a whole love</p>
<p>plz help im scared</p>
<p>^ is this bad? what should i do?</p>
<p>Love is just another dirty trick evolution set up to delude you into producing more vehicles to carry more copies of your genes.</p>
<p>Plato was onto something in the Symposium. Diotima observes that love is a sort of striving towards immortality. Animals have a sort of love to self-perpetuate. You can now see that this immortality is the immortality of your selfish genes. Genes that code for organisms with an obsession with reproduction will get replicated because their vehicles will reproduce. Therefore the organisms that exist are ones with obsessive reproductive drives. Since we are more complex, we have "love": a fiction created so that your "consciousness" has a way of rationalizing commands issued from lower parts of your brain and "you" think you're still in control. </p>
<p>Man is but an ass. You'll wake up eventually. Or maybe society will then dupe you into some sort of ethical gobbledygook about conjugal duty or whatever so that you'll raise your offspring and believe that you're happy stuck with one sexual partner when what you really want is to have sex with as many people as possible.</p>
<p>Sensible people become monks. </p>
<p>(Not really. That's just to avoid the conclusion that we all ought to go die.)</p>
<p>True love isn't possible without experiencing true hardship. Thus, most teenagers don't stand a chance of finding true love until they're off on their own(sounds funny doesn't it?).</p>
<p>
[quote]
Love is just another dirty trick evolution set up to delude you into producing more vehicles to carry more copies of your genes.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>If hate was inscribed on every electron present in my body, it wouldn't equal one millionth of the hate I feel for you for that statement or anyone who utters a similar statement. The world is going to hell because no one can think of anything in human terms anymore. Everything is seen through the eyes of science and technology. The human side of things, such as emotions, is never considered with any weight at all by most intelligent people because computers are obviously the more superior beings and we should all try to be more like them.</p>
<p>Also, Dawkins worshipers, or even the mere existence of them, **** me off.</p>
<p>you know, I have some time so I'm going to expand on this a little more.</p>
<p>Yes, love may or may not be an evolutionary mechanism. There is no possible way of knowing that yet, and you stating it like it isn't a theory but in fact unmovable correct obliterates any scientific merit your argument had. </p>
<p>But even if it is an evolutionary mechanism, why does that have to diminish its importance? You say that love is a purely biological phenomenon, but then go on to state that our biological desire is to "have sex with as many people as possible." Isn't that a contradiction? Or are you stating that love is in actuality fleeting sexual attraction? Why is it, then, that even before society established "the ethical gobbledygook about conjugal duty," humans generally stayed in pairs for their entire lives? This isn't only true for humans - other mammals exhibit these characteristics as well. Can you explain the 3% of mammalian species that mate for life with even more fidelity than human beings, if their only goal in life is to create copies of themselves to produce genes?</p>
<p>Love, even if it is a biological phenomenon, has extreme cultural value to the entire human species. Humanity has risen above base animal instinct to create culture, and with culture comes purpose. The human race has a larger purpose than "furthering the species" or "giving immortality to our own selfish genes" because we gave one to ourselves. We are able to attach a genuine importance to things that has no biological basis. This importance becomes part of our culture, and culture rises above mere biological needs and functions. The biological function of the brain is to think, control, remember, and solve. What we use these tools for is up to us and those who teach us, creating a network of neural links and webs that are our soul. There is no proof that we are born with anything besides base animal instinct. Everything else that we consider important was put there by no one but ourselves and those who are important to us. The human brain and soul (the soul, is, in my theory, what the empty brain we are born with is shaped into by its owner and his surroundings) are mostly made by humans themselves, which somehow makes them not as worthy as things that evolve by natural biological phenomenon, or worse, the perfect logical thinking of computers. What I'm trying to say is that human culture and values overshadow the base biological functions of the brain, quite obviously, and that life should be lived based on that. </p>
<p>By the way, if you even read the entire book "The Selfish Gene" before recklessly taking up Dawkins' ideas about lower animals up as your own, you would know that even Dawkins admits that humans have risen above the influence of their genes through our sapience and sentience.</p>
<p>I remember there was a time with the person I dated longest that I would rush home to talk to her, and we would talk for hours. However, we didn't love each other. I truly think the most important part of love (in Melanie's terms) is: -- the desire to spend forever together. to accomplish your goals together (and to assist one another in this). to bring life into the world (if that, of course, is a goal that aligns with both partners').</p>
<p>The flaw thing is so true too.</p>
<p>I don’t think a younger teenager (13-15/16) can, but once you mature more i think it becomes apparent to you that yiu want someone you care about, and someone to care about in return, then that can lead to ture love. However, i know of a person who dated a boy in 7th grade and is now happily married to him :). I thought i was in complete love, but my boyfriend dumped me, but then after a month or two my feelings faded away. It is very likely ateenager feels lust, not true love.</p>
<p>Define love.</p>
<p>Something to consider though: In most societies throughout history it was unusual to be unmarried and out of your teens, at least for girls.</p>
<p>That is such a social and gender paradigm today. But that is true. Wasn’t there much more of a religious drive in the past as well though?</p>
<p>The problem with just saying teenagers can’t know it is that at some point a true/false switch has to be turned and it isn’t simplistic at all for an answer.</p>
<p>Instead I would say the ability to recognize it improves over time. Can it happen to teens early on? Yes, but obviously through a lack of the characteristics that has sharpened the capabilities of elders to recognize it (cultural, personal, romantic experiences) certainty is more difficult.</p>
<p>Comparison is walking into a dark room and gaining the ability to focus on what you couldn’t see as well before. Possible instantly, but significantly easier and clearer later on.</p>
<p>What is love?</p>
<p>Baby don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me no more.</p>
<p>Oh, baby don’t hurt me
Don’t hurt me no more</p>
<p>What is love
Yeah</p>
<p>Oh, I don’t know why you’re not there
I give you my love, but you don’t care
So what is right and what is wrong
Gimme a sign </p>
<p>The choir at my school sang this for a concert… it was awesome.</p>