A Question about Love

Silas Mercury wrote: Ok. I was just wondering, and needed some answers. If sexuality and gender preference is based around and on attraction, does that mean that it is possible for a lesbian girl to fall in love with a straight guy ?? Can one love a straight guy minus sex and attraction ??

Love is more encompassing than just sex.

if your question is "is it possible for a lesbian to love me as a person even though i am a male?"
then the answer is "absolutely, yes"

now, im very sorry to bear bad news, but if your question is "is it likely that a lesbian is going to become romantically involved with me?" then the answer is "no, thats what it means to be a lesbian: she is not sexually attracted to men and youre not going to be the exception"

she might actually be bisexual, and yes love is crazy and complicated

but on the surface of it, you should never get your hopes attached to a persons behavior being anything other than either what they specifically tell you it is going to be, or what you have seen them do yourself

which means that if you know she has been with men or if she tells youthat she is attracted to men sometimes then your answer might be yes, but if she tells you that she is woman only then youre going to set you and her both up for a lot of pain by attaching your hopes or expectations to a romantic outcome

im sorry
i know you dont enjoy much of the feedback i have given you in your time here and i wish i could tell you something more optimistic

maybe you should ask her if she ever has been, or thinks she ever could be, attracted to a guy?

basically if youre ok with a non sexual non romantic relationship aka a (platonic) friendship then yes absolutely

but if she knows that you know that she is a lesbian and she gets close to you with that understanding, she is trusting that you accept her for who she is and arent scheming to get in her pants

if you burden her with the expectation of sex she is very likely going to feel betrayed and hurt, or just really angry

especially if she actually likes you: the more she likes you the more unhappy shes going to be when she finds out that your whole relationship was based on your hopes for sex

It looks like Ob1Shinobi said it quite well

Is it possible? - Sure

Is it worth tearing yourself apart hoping for, grasping at straws to believe there's hope? Probably not.

If you have to ask the forum and not her, then I'm going to suggest there's nothing there.

Never chase women or buses, you always get left behind.

Went through the exact process OB1Shinobi described, it’s not fun. We succeeded in mending this after I got rid of those intentions but there was a lot, LOT of pain on both sides before we got there.

but on the surface of it, you should never get your hopes attached to a persons behavior being anything other than either what they specifically tell you it is going to be, or what you have seen them do yourself

Good advice, and not only for romantic/intimate relationships.

“There are some people who would never have fallen in love if they had not heard there was such a thing.”
~ François de La Rochefoucauld, Maxims

It is a recurrent topic, but maybe not as recurrent as it needs to be, the question of just how separate love and sex actually are. There is a megaton or twenty of shame inducing thoughts, armed and ready for detonation in our psyches when this becomes an issue for us. It is one of those areas of life that everyone knows something about and nothing about at the same time thus, it becomes a tabou subject and lumped into the hamper of "mental illness" with all the other stuff we have made anti-social. Ever been the only "single" person at a dinner party ? Sometimes one begins to feel like that obnoxious person who farts in the lift or who lights up a cigarette in the cinema ...

As usual, we take the easy way into it : stipulating how love is a separate phenomenon from sex, how there are many kinds of sexless relationships which are quite rewarding &c. &c. ... And, by and large that is true. But that is skirting the subject a bit by trying to Reason it out this way. In fact, it is quite like trying to Reason with a brain-tumour, saying "Don't you see how destructive this is ? Please, stop ..."

There isn't a lot known right now about why one falls in love with a particular person. There are some indices (kindness & charisma, age, income/educational level) that float pretty conveniently on the surface, but there are untold fathoms of psycho-affective currents underneath what we can readily see in social interactions. Sexuality and (true) gender ambivalences lurk - and feed - down there.

We really do not have as much choice about whom we fall in love with as our liberated, atheistic, self-driven illusions about our social organisation lead us to believe. One can walk into a room full of charming people in our age-group and economic/educational class and we do not fall in love with all of them. Quite commonly, we fall in love with none of them -- although there are generally one or two we wouldn't mind having a shag with ... As this is the case, it is very probable that, when one does meet someone who takes on a 'special' significance, it may very well turn out to be someone who is not of a corresponding sexuality or just, for whatever incongruity in the situation, not available. There is no cause for guilt or shame in this (except, of course, if one or the other is cruel about it -- if the one "in love" resorts to ruse or pressure to obtain 'favours' from the other, or if the one who is not interested puts down insultingly the one who is enamoured) ; as it were, it is noble to love from afar, not expecting anything in return even if the hope, the dream, the longing may remain to various degrees. There is as much separation between loving and being loved as we're trying to put between love and sex : we never get them entirely "separate," but just far apart enough that we can get on with our lives.

What has struck me as funny sometimes over the time that I've read about this topic (social psychology, sociology and anthropology -- NOT "Cosmopolitan" or "The Sun" columnists) is just how embittered one can be about someone one doesn't want feeling love and hope of its eventual reciprocation. Although probably most of the burden of unrequited love does fall on the one who is in love, there is a certain degree (sometimes intense) of awkwardness and humiliation for the person who does not share the feelings. On both sides, sympathy and understanding are warranted. No one deserves being put down or told to "come to their senses." This too is a very old dilemma :

"We are nearer loving those who hate us, than those who love us more than we desire.”
― François de La Rochefoucauld, Maxims

For as much as we bang on about how nonreciprocal love is difficult and damaging, maybe we ought to dig it out of the hamper and smell it to see if it isn't a little more wear-able than one might ordinarily think -- despite the stains. It is, after all, pretty durable. The most fragile sort of love is when two people decide to have a go at making one another fit all of their diverse needs ; disillusionment ensues when realising that the other is just another human being. Then, without some right properly practised perspective-taking, it becomes the partner's fault that s/he is only human and quite incapable of dissolving a life-time of existential angst. And quite commonly, they are both doing it to one another at the same time. Then they break up, just to go meet someone else 'normal' and 'wonderful' (and who they don't know as well) to get the whole mess going again.

On the other tentacle however, what makes a more one-sided love resistant is that it doesn't have a disappointment aspect like actually trying to live with someone else does. There is that hope that "everything would be alright, if only..." that can be quite sustaining. Whereas that hope can be a positive motivator (even if that hope is never realised) , a reciprocated relationship that cannot be sustained (as in, one of the two potential partners isn't of the right sexuality), that motivational hope gets crushed under the pressure of a disappointing break-up.

Sex can be a quite separate behaviour from love, but it is not very convincing when talking about close, loving relationships, that love can be separated from sex . The love may not necessarily die without it, but the relationship might. Sex - of the "love-making" variety - is the ultimate of acceptance. Not the "my beloved can do no wrong" sort of acceptance, but the acceptation of being, for a time, of one body, of one flesh (to use a very old metaphor). When two people feel that close to one another, a sexual consommation is the equivalent of sharing for a brief time the most socially un-acceptable part of ourselves - our bodies - with one another in the most open and genuine way. And that is why that hope remains and why we perhaps ought not discourage it.

Now, I must emphasise again that I'm talking about "love-making" sex, and not the mutually pleasing, satisfaction seeking, "let's get each other off" type of sex. That latter type is nice, and it indeed does have its place in healthy living (and can, actually be the sort that people who really do love one another have most of the time too) and it is nice if one has a friend or two who offer it now and then, but all things considered, one can buy that sort of sex. If this sort of sex is what the hope that one is harbouring entails, confused with 'loving' the intended, then we ought to very honestly suggest alternatives.


We're not going to solve this here. Actually, we'll never solve it until we just don't love anyone any more. I'm not sure that it would be a solution if we all just loved everyone ~ that could risk getting us into bigger tangles. But, I, for one, do not wish to see the day where no one loves anyone, or if one is in love with someone who doesn't return that love, 'no worries, there's a pill that can cure it.'

I've been on both sides of this particular quandary and know how how uncomfortable it can be for both persons. What I'll like to offer in the place of a conclusion is merely to persevere. Feel what you feel, for whom you feel it ; hope what you have to hope (even if the probability is small : there is no such thing as "false hope"), be honest, use no ruse, trickery nor subterfuge for "getting what you want" (that is the cruelty I was talking about above), and be compassionate and patient with everyone involved. Realise that the person who doesn't love you back is not being "mean" - this isn't a moral issue - and that it is a difficult situation for her/him also.

I hope that helps a little ...

It helps to let go of needing to put a label on everything. Just be.

It can be quite an exercise in self-centered folly to hope for anyone to change their own labels just for you though. If you really love someone, love them for exactly what they are now and don't ask them to change.

What do you mean by "love"? I love both my mother and father. I love my girlfriend. I love my friends. Aren't these different "loves"s with different qualities? Because I think a lesbian can love a man as a parent loves a child, or a child loves a parent, and a lesbian can love a man as a friend. But someone who's purely lesbian won't likely ever have any kind of romantic love for a man.