It's a thin line between love and hate
- Chrissie Hynde
We all have reasons for making others believe we love them. Money, security, comfort. Likewise, others have reasons to make us believe we love them.
You can tell that corporations don't love you even though they try to make you happy because they will gladly trade in your happiness for some amount of money. For the exact figure, divide the market potential by the number of consumers in the market.
My wife and I have taught our kids to say "I love you" easily and often. I asked the four year old, "Does that mean you want to make me happy or you want me to make you happy?" The first time I asked, being quick to let out of her mouth just exactly what she wants right now, she said "you to make me happy," while she was thinking about it. "Oh, well, then that's not important to me," I said, "everybody wants me to make them happy. I'm looking for people that want to make me happy." The very next time I asked, with a big grin on her face, and honestly as far as I could tell, she said "to make you happy!"
Love is patient and kind and everlasting and honest and a bunch of other things, but it can exist without most of these qualities. It seems that the best way to define it, so that a person can tell if they have it, is to stop using the word and see what words you use in its place. The word does not matter. People need to be loved. They need something, and regardless of what we call it, it feels good to get it and earning it is worth a lot of effort. Since we're all a bit different, each of us has to use our own definition. My definition of love, the transitive verb, is to strive for the happiness of another, and to accept no substitute for that happiness.
Some pitfalls for you to jump in if you wish to feel unloved:
- Look for what the other person gets by making you happy. Pretend that this shows that they don't love you.
- Watch for the moments when the other person does something that has no effect on you. Pretend that loving you means complete self-denial.
- Assume that every desire you have constitutes something that will bring about your happiness, and when the other person suggests that it isn't true, you can pretend that they don't love you.
- When the other person is around, try to do things that are best done alone, and when the other person is away, pine for them. This will make you very depressed and you can assume it's because they don't love you.
- Make sure that each time you have the opportunity to give the other person the benefit of doubt, don't take it.
- Whenever you don't understand something, assume it's the other person's fault for not explaining better.
- Try to avoid talking and if you must talk, don't tell them anything important about yourself or how you feel.
- Most important: If you start to feel or think that you have some responsibility toward the other person, drink alcohol or do drugs until the feeling goes away. It is nearly impossible to continue feeling unloved when you start doing your part to keep the relationship healthy.
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