Question about love

Is it always better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all? Recently the one person I've truly loved betrayed me and broke every promise we'd made to one another, to the point I've lost faith in love altogether and am committed to living--eventually dying--alone. That said, I recognize everybody will catastrophize like this in the wake of heartbreak; the wound is often healed enough by time that people try again when that first, deepest cut begins to fade. Is this a feeling I need to sit with? Or is, again, love not really worth it? Despite more societal messaging than about maybe anything else. Here I was a romantic before this happened.

>>84876 absolutely the former, you learn a lot as you get over it and become a better person imo. Of course you could also not and become jaded. It's kind of a fundamental wisdom

I think the trauma from it gives you an extra edge over people who have never experienced it. maybe it's crazy to say but I hope I never "get over it", whatever that means. I plan to be living in spite until I die.

If you were betrayed, was it ever really love at all, or was it the illusion of love? If you never meant anything to the other person, how could it have been love?

look around you on this board and here and there youl see what kind of person you become when you never have loved.

This question can never be answered. Since most "love" ends up being hurting one could argue the later, but nobody willever know for sure. Also this: >>84889

I would rather to have loved and figured out how to accept each other as humans rather than to lose that connection. It's much more fulfilling to really see you and another person for who you are, as humans with stupid soykafty qualities about them, yet you love each other.

>>84876 there is no love in a matriarchy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSx7IyveErw&ab_channel=Cav

>>84876 >Is it always better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all? No. A long time ago when I was a braindamaged hotshot guitar player, girls would get crushes on me. I married one of them ,a little whore who was head over heels for a while. A few years later after one kid and reality setting in, she reverted to form, spread her legs for my brother, left with him and took the kid with her. I tried raising the kid the best I could when I had him, but being mentally ill myself, I fuarrrked it all up. He became a satanic cult member and a drug addict. I went completely nuts and went into complete isolation ever since. Considering the state of the world now, I'm sorry I ever had a kid (for his sake). And I'm sorry I ever loved anybody or that anybody ever loved me. Every time I think about it I want to kill myself. fuarrrk love. fuarrrk having kids. fuarrrk everything.

never say always. some people fall in love with people who end up killing them. but most of the time, it's better to have loved.

I think the most important thing here is your idea of what "love" is. Love as it exists is reality is something that is necessarily transactional. It's not the same as that eternal idealization we read about in stories. It's based on a value that you have that they are willing to make an exchange for. Values can change with time, and so love should too. Some values are more resistant to the change of the outside world of course, things like physical attractiveness(so long as you retain your youth), various genetic factors, social status, wealth. Other values change like the weather, things like how you make a person "feel" in a given moment, how "safe" they feel with you, etc. If you lost love, it means that your value to them just reached the point where you were no longer worth it. So going forward, I would suggest playing to your strengths if you have any, or at the very least not investing time and effort into things you know aren't likely to net you any real benefits. Alternatively, you can keep playing the game randomly and wildly and expecting things to turn out differently than the past 20 times you tried it.

>>84876 There are perhaps three big principles to note here: 1) People tend to find themselves preoccupied by relationships of love at all stages of life, finding it difficult to put the consideration of such aside even when they feel they "ought to." 2) People tend to find that they can experience great satisfaction (even up to ecstasy) in relationships of love when those relationships are "going well." 3) People tend to find that they can experience great dissatisfaction (even up to anguish) in relationships of love when those relationships are "going poorly" or come to an end. Beyond these principles, which I take to be uncontroversial, all else is interpretation. For my part, I'm willing to accept by (1) and (2) that love can rightly be called a "need" for most of us and thus we have no reasonable choice but to act at any given moment with an eye toward attaining the joys of love while avoiding its pains. As with any endeavor, we cannot take it as a given that we will succeed in this any more than we can always hit the bullseye on the dartboard. By further analogy with darts, we might see each attempt at a relationship as a "throw" or trial which might be thought of as a success or a failure. What is the best criterion of success? Perhaps it is whether you ultimately secured a permanent relationship of love of the sort that would "go well." Perhaps it is whether, on balance, the joys of the relationship outweighed the pains. And of course by means of memory the joys and pains echo on such that the memory of a relationship may be, on balance, something mostly sweet to us or mostly bitter. In those cases where we find it mostly bitter it is perhaps fair to say that it was NOT better to have loved and lost in that trial. But, regardless, each trial ought to furnish us with the data by which we might correct our aim for the next; in this sense every trial is good. Even under this relatively optimistic framework, though, we find the possibility that a person might by many trials accumulate nothing but bitter memories over a lifetime. In such a case, we might say that for them it was not, in the general result of the thing, better to have loved and lost than to have never loved. Still, if we accept love as a "need" per (1) and (2), I cannot see that there was a reasonable alternative and thus we can still say that with regard to their part in the process attempting was best, as the result might well have been otherwise. Thoughts on this analysis, Lain? Rodriguez - "To Whom It May Concern" https://youtube.com/watch?v=TwT5nAFxAkk

Pity the lovers in their happiness, for they will know the greatest of all pains.

>>84876 You need to deeply consider how you understand and experience different types of love and come to a personal determination on what type of love you want to emit from yourself in your life. After many years my personal conclusion is that love is not so much about being loved by others as it is about loving life and loving everything in it. I do not feel that seeking the love of a woman in the sense of a relationship can truly satisfy me lest I also have the love of Life, God, and Creation to back it up. If a woman loved me I would be grateful, but its not going to make or break me. Loving Life, God, and Creation will make or break me though.

I know it's wonderful to meet somebody who loves you and who is your gf/bf. I would like to try to find somebody because everybody loves somebody sometime. But I know it wouldn't work because I have too much schizoid personality features and I suffer from too much depersonalization/derealization. Social cues aren't hard for me to understand (or "sense") but I just wouldn't know what to do or talk about. I wouldn't have much to talk about and I don't know what we could do together. It feels a bit conflicting but I know it's for the best if I play this lifetime solo. It also scares me how vulnerable you are when you are dating but I know that's a part of the deal. Anyway, there is no reason why me or you couldn't be happy living without a partner. But if you really want a partner, you can't really meet one if you don't try again.

>>84876 LOL, you just camouflaged banal lust with the fiction of love, invented by philosophers and supported by society within the framework of centuries-old game lore. Of course, no love exists, just as there is no friendship, speed of light, stars, space, viruses and other Masonic nonsense for imbeciles. Watch anime, eat tasty food, fuarrrk beautiful girls and don't screw up your brain.

>>84876 It's bullshit. Women lie and deceive. The only real love you'll ever see is if you're in a firefight, and your buddies are fighting their way out alongside you.

>>87034 You are still young and stupid. No one loves anyone, especially women, because love does not exist. Men satisfy their lust and desire for romance. Women are looking for male designer to sculpt an object of fantasies from it under a tag <real man>. Everyone lives schizophrenia, which is picked up from the cultural Laura. A person can only become happy alone, having loved himself.

>>87019 this is the most sensible take in the thread so far imo. the vast majority of meatstacks require romance and/or (possibly transactional) intimacy. some folks get by only trying it once or not at all. good for them ig. personally i find its a worthy endeavor. some of yall are so jaded.... i know its common around here, and tempting given the current state of things, but still i hope some love (not necessarily from a person) finds its way into your thinking. wisdom and compassion are inseparable. certain modes of thinking are inherently corrosive. also gr8 song.

>>87380 >blah blah blah t. ten year old virgin who has never touched a woman in his life.

>>87385 Yes, well, as the lainon who posted that, I note that sensible takes are dear things everywhere atm. I occasionally hop in here to fight the spiraling negativity, but usually I can't tell I've even been read and I'm certainly not encouraged, so thank you, Lain. It's nice to feel seen. In a way I see the love issue by the old Stoic metaphor: we are tied to the cart and must walk or else be dragged. But there is not only walking and dragging but striding, dancing, perhaps even flying. In matters of love I think all this is possible. And yet...how has it come to be that I myself have never known love? "And how should I presume?" It seems one must first grab hold of courage.

The idea of love has been romanticized and exaggerated by the media and society. It is not a magical force, it is not something that will cause you to always be happy, it is not something that will prevent you from ever feeling lonely. It is also not the same in every case. Love for a parent, child, friend, romantic partner, etc are all different feelings. What does love mean? You care for someone, you get excited by seeing someone, you miss someone, you love "unconditionally"? I believe that unless it is your own child then of course there will be conditions. Don't let your heartbreak make you jaded. Just look at love for what it really is. Companionship, care, support. Look for those things instead of looking for "love" and you'll be much better off. At the end of the day we will die alone, so make those connections but don't feel forced to put labels on them.

>>87875 im sorry to hear you havent experienced it yet. for me its happened three times, with the most recent experience starting from a dating app. i used them on and off for four years without success. adjusted my approach over time and the first actual date i had ended up being someone i felt comfortable sharing my heart with. the dating scene is certainly convoluted these days. its easy to lose ones head. feigned confidence is enough, determination is the real key imo. ive never been great at putting myself out there. with the apps (i eventually settled on hinge) its more straightforward to stick it out and refine your approach. romance is absolutely worth it. important for actualizing yourself as a member of humanity. with how you write i think its only a matter of time for you