It's too bad we don't have a philosophy forum but I guess this can do...Can you love someone you're not physically attracted to? Think about it. I've no problem with this arguement, I'm happily in love with my girlfriend and our one year anniversary is just tomorrow so I'm not complaining...It's just that I find this question intriguing.

Back to the point, I was sitting in Religion class today and I was watching a movie about Buddhism and it got me thinking... Buddhism tries to acheive nirvana(self-enlightenment) and the first step is to renounce all material possesion and physical properties of society.

I guess it's a matter of personal opinion, but I wouldn't think that I could love someone who I was not physically attracted to. It takes just the right balance of humour, wit, charm, patience and good looks to get me going...

Think about it. And if this topic has been posted before then just reply anyways cos' I missed the other one.

Cheers

Well of course you can. Ugly people get married and have sex every day. And a very large part of the phsical attraction comes from the emotional connection.

I think you can love someone without being attracted to them. I love my friends, but I don't want to fuck them.

However, to be in love with someone then yes, I do definetly need to be very attracted to them.

You don't think the ugly people are attracted to each other? If they're that bad, they may be attracted to anyone who'll touch them.

A major part of romantic love is the chemical bond of sexual attraction that forms between the people involved. You can love someone without it, but not in "that way". It just isn't the same.

deep philosophical question my ass...

I actually started thinking of this too as well, i have a friend who is possibly the closest i can have to real but everything she seemingly does, she does it wrong, though she has me on the verge of being possibly falling in love with her, a part of me is saying that it wont happen.

That part of me is most likely right. You dont and cant control who you fall in love with, and if you dont think that you cant fall in love with anyone that has less then 1 physical imperfection then your standards are too high and a relationship between you and them if you do have them probably wont last, its called growing as a person to find the right person.

You of course can love someone that your not physically attracted to, but remeber that personality or life perspective is changed significantly with a significantly unattractive person. Its cruel and dark yes, no one should be rejected or put out of consideration for something they cant control, but such is the pain in living.

Follow your heart in either case, not your eyes, the eyes judge without really "seeing" anything. The heart and the beauty within it are things people dont even know how to see anymore, least it seems that way...

A girl who has a great personality just recently asked me out and I accepted on the account that shes a great person. Other than that i can see the relationship going downhill. So basically physical attraction is a big part of it, a support cable if you will. Anything else just wears out with time.

quote:Originally posted by RedShift:

So basically physical attraction is a big part of it, a support cable if you will. Anything else just wears out with time.

bullshit, sounds like you've taken some pretty harsh breakups in your days, lotta feelings thrown around eh? Hopefully the relationship didnt waste too much time there in your past...

anyways the physical part always should be the weakest bond in a relationship, face it... If you continuously keep looking for looks, chances are you arent the most attractive to begin with anyways, and that your so judgemental over something that cannot be controlled the ideals you have developed are 20 to 1 completely worthless... Looks turn to a seeming shit over time, if your looking at it that way.

I personally cannot believe how people can be so judgemental over others based on looks, then again i dont even recognize myself when i look in the mirror each day, (im always meeting some different looking guy in the bathroom every morning ) so this may be where a tad of it streams from. The true beauty of a soul is one that lasts through any situation unnaffected except in the effect of growth and over any test of time.

Too many people today are completely hopeless, but im still fightin for em'

[This message has been edited by great glavin (edited 10-09-2003).]

Physical attraction will draw you to people in the first place, but in the end, we all lose our teeth, and our hair, and gain/lose way too much weight, and get all wrinkledy. Who would fall in love when we're like that if love were based on looks? No one. Thankfully everyone in the human race is like that, nobody's perfect. When people fall in real love, it doesn't matter whether someone doesn't look like the picture of their dreams. They become that dream each and every day.

I like to think of love like this as "old hat love". It gets comfortable with time.

People can fall in love without physical attraction. Some people find intelligence more attractive. It is unlikely because that is what our society has branded into us that looks are the most important. But, it does happen from time to time that people have managed to overlook looks.

I remember from the movie, The Truth About Cats and Dogs, the lead actor was fooled into thinking that a person he was talking to on the phone and radio was a model instead of her less attractive girl friend. In one scene, the real girl (the less attractive one) is behind a door and asks about how much her looks matter. He said that if you really love someone, that person will become more and more attractive to you over time. And if someone is attractive but you don't like them, they will become less and less attractive to you over time. If you can think back to an ex that treated you like shit, you can probably see that you were not that attracted to them at the end as you were at first. It took me a while to accept this, but it finally happened to me. A girl that I did not notice at first eventually became very attractive to me.

As for the "objective beauty" of an uninvolved party; even that is subjective. One class's beauty queen could be Hollywood's next loser.

Beauty truly is in the eye of the beholder, and so I think the topic question is backwards. It is not, Can you love someone you are not attracted to? It should be, Can you be unattracted to someone you love? IMO, the answer is no. At least, not for long.

-Easy

Of course you can love someone without physical attraction. The greeks had the advantage over us here, they had 4 different words for love, each specifying love in a different way. There was one, storge, for loving something inanimate, like a computer. I love my computer, but would I fuck it? Hell no! They had a word, agape, for the love between a man and his god, a religious and sacrificial love if you will. They had philos, the love of brothers and friends. I love my friends and those who I truely love I would gladly die for. Would I fuck them? Again, Hell No! Then there is eros the erotic, romantic love, the love of a man and woman. Now you can fuck them.

To make a truely successful partnership you need a little storge, a bit of eros, a lot of philos, and a ton of agape. Erotic passion is not the heart and soul of love, indeed it is but a minor player in the grand scheme. It is much more important that you be willing to sacrifice for her, that you are so intimately comfortable that there are no secrets, than that you can give her a wild hour between the sheets.

Eros is the dessert, it is the ice cream at the end of a meal, but dont neglect the meat and potatoes of love. Love is a verb, it isnt an emotion, you cant fall in love. You can however give love, you can be loving, you can even love an enemy, the action of love isnt bounded by such petty emotions as anger and fear.

Thats crap. Eros is the foundation and most significant aspect of a romantic relationshiop- Duh, its what seperates the love for your wife from the love for your mother.

quote:Originally posted by The_Stalker:

the action of love isnt bounded by such petty emotions as anger and fear.

i liked that part, i dont like many things, but i liked that.