[JanusunaJ]

What exactly is love? Specifically, romantic love between two or more individuals?

Years ago I came across a description stating succinctly that love is ineffable. If this is true, how do you know if your psychical experience in regards to a separate distinct manifestation such as another person or a form of art, for example, qualifies as and falls on the spectrum of the ineffable nature that is assumed to be love? I am furthermore undecided in regards to love when considering the linguistic supposition that without language the capacity to think does not exist. Does that mean that if love is indescribable and therefore can't exist in thought it therefore doesn't exist? Generally speaking, if an event is not perceptible does it exist? However, I do consider music, more so classical music, to be a language. Possibly through that medium "love" can more aptly be defined.

I have also seen love to be defined as a strong affection. What does "strong" mean? Is there a universal quantification of "strong"? If not, can there be(should there be) a comparison between two or more individuals purveying a "strong" affection? The idea of "strong" suggests that when a person states that they love another person or persons and if the other person or persons respond with an "I love you too," the group loves each other at an equal amount. There cannot exist an "I love you more."

Intuitively, I know that I love my family and classical music including trombone performance(I'm a classically trained bass trombonist). I've even had a Stendhal-syndrome-esque moment from listening to a romantic era orchestral work.

In regards to romantic love, part of me without doubt knows that I've experienced romantic love once(with The ex), but another part of me tries to, I suppose in a sense, bowdlerize that belief. Long story short, the relationship ended horribly. But, in regards to her, there was an unyielding feeling, a wholly new-to-me psychical experience that was unconditional.

Possible trigger:

In the beginning of our relationship, after we'd decided to be exclusive, she told me that she was an alcoholic with five years of sobriety. I had without confirmation, rather suspected, alcoholism from a succinct reason she gave for no longer drinking during a conversation on our first date. But, my suspicion nor her confirmation altered my perception of her. She thought I was going to break up with her. Later on she'd tell me of her mother possibly sexually abusing she and her sister; she told me of her younger brother suffering from some mental illness that resulted in him being violent with their older sister; she told me that she was taking an antipsychotic. She didn't tell me these facts in one day, but over a period of weeks. And each time she told me one of those facts she would state an idea that I would break up with her. But, none of that changed the way I perceived her.

I was totally enamored, but I can't really specify a seemingly justifiable reason or reasons for that level of feeling. I did find her personality to be very attractive. She was one of the most intelligent people I'd ever met and I've known plenty of intelligent people. I furthermore found her attractiveness heightened by her former career as a writer(she was a journalist) and that she enjoyed reading. Two pastimes that at the time I greatly enjoyed. I was working on a novel and I read quite frequently during that part of my life. So, I suppose there was those similar qualities. But, I've dated and been in relationships with other women that enjoyed reading, however, there wasn't that quality of affection between them as there was between my ex and I. I can't really explain or put a finger on what it was about her that brought about that heightened feeling.

I did notice the weight and uniqueness of my feelings towards her near the beginning of our relationship. I remember the night it was solidified: I was downtown with some friends and we were ending the night after having a few drinks. I wasn't drunk, maybe tipsy, but I'd definitely had enough to drink that I'd loosened up. I'm usually very anxious in regards to socializing and talking about feelings. So, I'm walking with my friends and I start a text message conversation with my ex. I don't remember what I said, all I know is that it was something "silly" and she played along with the conversation. I don't know what it was, but it was something about her responses that instilled a strong and seemingly distinct idea in regards to her and I sent her something along the lines of "I'm glad I met you again." During that period of my life I had a belief in souls and the romantic notion of soulmates.

Either that night or the next night she asked what I meant by that last message. I explained it to her by way of purveying the storyline from a passage from a Richard Matheson novel that contained influences from Hamlet. I don't think I'll ever be able to convey an idea with such personal truth, candor, and clarity again in my life. I was speaking to her, explaining the story and the characters' tribulations for a few minutes. After I finished there was only quiet. I thought that I'd said too much too soon; felt too passionately too soon; I thought that I'd sabotaged the relationship. I told her that I was embarrassed. She said to me don't be. I looked at her and she was crying. At the time I suppose I assumed that was a good thing. I wish I'd asked her why she was crying.

Months pass. We go on a road trip. We stay with some of her close relatives. We go to a concert and we go on hikes. It was on the way back to our town when she told me that the trip solidified her belief that she could see herself spending the rest of her life with me. A week or two after that she gives me a book that she tells me she bought a while ago. The book is about penguins and it conveys the idea of lifelong love by way of talking about that variety of penguin only having one mate throughout their life.

Maybe two weeks later, I notice that something about her behavior towards me has changed. Granted, during that time I was experiencing mood swings of depression, but I put in a good effort to not let it weigh me down. In the beginning of our relationship I even told her that I had mood swings; I used a euphemism by way of stating that I sometimes experienced moments of melancholy and I told her I was taking an antidepressant. So, by the time these two weeks of changed behavior came around she'd known for months that I had issues with depression. Nevertheless, there was a change. The last week of our relationship she'd asked me to go with her to visit her parents; I said yes. But, a few days later she changes her mind. Conveys a suggestion that she doesn't trust me. I'm too anxious to outright bring it up so the morning before she left to visit her parents I sent her a message: tell me you love me. She replied: you can't demand that from me...our relationship is over...I wish you good luck.

I called her and we spoke for hours. I explained to her how much winning that audition meant to me, telling her that I wanted to marry her and that winning the audition was the way to finding the financial backing to marry her, that I thought winning an audition I'd lost a few weeks ago would have given us the financial backing to start having kids, something we'd talked about on a handful of occasions. I hear her crying on the phone. She was driving and I hear that she's had to pull over and stop because she's crying. During the conversation, she later tells me that she'd been thinking about breaking things off for a while(I wonder to myself what "a while" means since she only two weeks or so ago told me 1) she could see herself spending the rest of her life with me and 2) that she loved me) and she tells me, with these words, I'm co-dependent, jealous of her textbooks(she was in law school), a quitter, and that I'm not resilient.

Possible trigger:

My thought process in regards to those accusations: I've displayed no characteristics of co-dependency as I had made of point of having my own life outside of the relationship; I'm not jealous of her textbooks as her academic drive/ambition and intellect were highly attractive and in fact I'd had a conversation with her stating that I didn't want to come between her and her academic pursuits(she was in the top 10% or her law school class at a tier 1 law school) because I thought it would tarnish our relationship if her academics were negatively affected because she was spending too much time with me; the only thing that I'd quit was an indie-rock band I had been in for maybe a year as I told her I thought it had become monotonous and boring; and "I'm not resilient?" well, I've picked myself up from academic difficulties from my primary, secondary, and post-secondary education; I've rebounded from countless derailments stemming from periods of psychological duress that led to collapse and even hospitalization; I survived all of that and excelled while not having a steady home as a child as my mother, sister, and I moved from house to house, year by year, until we eventually had to move in with my grandparents in their four bedroom house that was falling apart(I mean you could hear rats chewing and crawling behind the walls) where it was my grandmother, grandfather, mom, sister, myself, a preadolescent cousin(sometimes his mother as well) living under one roof; we weren't homeless and we did have food, but we were existing at the low end of the socioeconomic spectrum; at that time I'd only met/seen/visited my father more than twice but not more than six times in the entirety of my life, I was/am literally a bastard child as my father was married with two other kids when he from what I assume seduced my mother and she became pregnant with me, her second child; my mother is intelligent and attended and graduated from a highly regarded private research university in the southeast, she even attended dental school and was on her way to becoming a dentist until she got pregnant with my older sister whereupon for another reason she dropped out of dental school, pursued other careers, finally becoming a high school chemistry teacher, but according to my sister she had a psychological collapse and we moved in with her parents with her teaching career stalled for an extended period(she was a substitute teacher for a while, I remember seeing one of her monthly paychecks: $600). So, yeah, my ex said I was a quitter and said I wasn't resilient. However, I was too afraid to defend myself due to fears of abandonment by countering her statements with any of the above information so I countered with the weak riposte that I was planning on getting back into long-distance jogging(a hobby I'd stopped doing primarily because I was depressed).

Long story, short. Things got very heated between she and I after that conversation. Maybe a week or so later all conversation and interaction was permanently terminated. I've never seen or spoken to her since.

It took me a significant amount of time to get over her. Maybe I'll never truly be over her. The only thing that consistently perplexes me is what the hell was going on as her demeanor shifted suddenly and randomly and she stated reasons that had no foundations in truth regarding my personality. I'll never know I suppose.

Nowadays though I do think it was correct for her to end the relationship as my life has been filled with nothing but one catastrophic derailment after another since that year.

It's been six years! since that relationship(embarrassing to admit that I still think about it) and I've not been in another that has lasted more than a month since. I've gone on countless first dates and second dates, but in the end nothing sticks and no relationships form. For a couple of months I was going on one or two dates a week; during that time I was seeing a therapist on a daily basis. She and I would talk about a lot of things, but those sessions always included talk about my past and current dating experiences. Near the end she told me that I shouldn't settle. I didn't realize I was doing that, but apparently she thought so. I suppose I'd been doing that since my early twenties, however, I without doubt don't think I settled with The ex.

Nowadays, I doubt romantic love exists. Then I reassess and determine that romantic love does exist, but just not for me. The subset of love doesn't overlap at any point with the subset that is me. No woman will ever romantically love me.

Then I wonder if it did happen, would I be lying to or cheating on my new romantic partner as I'd already given that special, unique, wholly priceless, cosmic and magical quality of my being to another. Isn't that cheap? Like repeatedly giving a gift that has been returned to you, to another?