Are You In Love Or Lust?

Are you in love, or is it lust? Love and lust are inextricably intertwined. Lust is ground zero for hormones -- it's nature's way of bringing the opposite sexes together to mate. In fact, without lust, it's doubtful that love between a man and a woman would have a chance to prosper at all.

The driving force of the sexual imperative bridges the gap between the almost incompatible brain styles of the two sexes. So lust can be seen as one end of a broad continuum, which may or may not culminate in romantic love.

And love is the most ennobling of human emotions -- transcendental, exalted and capable of engendering emotional states that can make the male of the species want "to be a better man."

Men fight wars over lust, but they make homes and families for love.

In love with lust

For men, lust is a heady experience; the brain goes on hold and red-hot surges of testosterone run the show. Lust, like love, is truly blind. This is why, especially at the beginning of a relationship, it can be hard to tell whether you're in lust or love -- whether she may be "The One," or merely a passing fancy who'll have your blood boiling for only a short while.

This is because men are perfectly capable of engaging in sex before they forge emotional bonds with a woman -- and those raging hormones can easily disguise themselves as feelings of love.

The real danger is that both lust and love can rob a man of his natural strength and defenses -- and then it's all too easy to hand his male power over to a woman for sex-ploitation .

Lust is especially dangerous because it causes a man to think with his crotch and throw all reason and logic to the wind. When a man's in lust he doesn't care if he and his partner have anything in common. He's not interested in where she comes from or where she's going. His brain is only focused on using his key to unlock the door to the secret cave. If his partner's only in lust, she'll use this against him, but if they're both falling in love, this sexuality is a bond.

Learn how to tell instantly whether you're in love or lust...

So how can you tell whether it's love or lust? Here are a few tips to help you sort things out.

It's lust if:

You're totally focused on her looks and body
Even before you know her name, you're already fantasizing about what she looks like naked and what it would be like to have sex with her.

You don't care about anything she has to say
It wouldn't make a difference to you if you never had a conversation with her. Furthermore, you don't bother to return her calls promptly and you can easily go for days without talking to her -- until you get horny again.

You only want to be with her to have sex
You make excuses not to spend time with her, except for sex. And if she asks you for a favor, you tell her you're too busy. But if you have to be with her and not have sex, she gets on your nerves and you find yourself fantasizing about other women.

She's your booty call
After you go out trolling for tail with your buddies on Friday night, you then call her at 1 a.m. for some drunken action. Ah, the booty call.

You leave after sex
After having sex with her, you look for the easiest way to leave. No cuddling, no breakfast the next morning, just "I gotta go."

It's love if:

You have great chemistry
You get lost in your conversations, and the hours pass like minutes. You're more than willing to listen to her when she talks about her day. The chemistry between you is remarkable.

You find her beautiful
Even if you catch her with no makeup on and her hair pulled back while she's unclogging a toilet, she still looks beautiful to you.

You want to spend time with her
All you want to do is to be with her, whether you're having sex or not. Even if she tells you that sex will have to wait, you don't care.

You see a future together
You experience the strange feeling that your life would be totally empty without her. You tell your friends and family that she may be The One, and you're even thinking about marrying her.

You introduce her to your family
It becomes very important to you that your parents like her, and that she gets along with everyone close to you.

You include her in all your plans
Whether you're going out with your male friends or taking your dog for a walk, you want her there with you. And if she's not there, you can't get her off your mind and sneak off to give her a quick "I miss you" phone call. Of course, you don't tell your buddies.

You are more romantic
All of a sudden you find yourself listening to cheesy romantic songs and thinking of her. You send her flowers and love notes to work and set up romantic evenings candlelit dinners at home.

You always take her side
If someone says anything even slightly disparaging about her, you immediately rise to her defense. Furthermore, in social gatherings, you always agree with her even if you disagree behind closed doors.

She makes you want to be a better man
She challenges and motivates you. She makes you happy, and you'd do anything to make her happy.

gotta love lust

Lust is short-term fun; love is the long haul. Even though the two sometimes masquerade as each other, you should be able to tell the difference. The real trick is in deciding what you want... and that's up to you.

Why Does Love Hurt?

I found this passage online and wanted to share it with you.

Many people believe that love is a sensation that generates when Mr. or Mrs. right appears.... no wonder so many people are single. Many people approach a relationship either consciously or unconsciously, they believe love is a sensation based on physical and emotional attraction that magically/spontaneously generates when that special person appears. And just as easily, it can spontaneously degenerate when the magic just isn't there anymore. You fall in love, and you can fall out of love. The key word is passivity. The sad consequence of this misconception is: "There is hardly any activity, any enterprise, which is started with such tremendous hopes and expectations and yet, which fails so regularly, as love." Love is the attachment that results in deeply appreciating another's goodness. See what we value most in ourselves, we value most in others. God created us to see ourselves as good (hence our need to either rationalize or regret our wrongdoings). So, we seek goodness in others. Nice looks, an engaging personality, intelligence and talent (all of which counts for something) may attract you, but goodness is what moves you to love. Trust Me! If that person doesn't see the same goodness in you, love is not possible because it really takes two to love. I like to say give and receive. Remember a person can't love if they don't want to be loved. Love is a choice, if love comes from appreciating goodness, it needn't just happen--you can make it happen, love is active. You can create it. Just focus on the good in another. If you can do this easily you'll love easily but will be venerable to a lot of fake love in return and also pain. Obviously, there is a far distance between personal love and unconditional love. See unconditional love is rooted from within.... only a person who captures your true love will receive it...because you see the true goodness in them. Actions affect feelings. How can you deepen your love for someone? Actions affect our feelings the most. If you want to become more compassionate, thinking compassionate thoughts will be a start. Giving ultimately is the key. While most people think that love leads to giving.... the truth is actually the total opposite, giving leads to love. The first action of giving is care, demonstrating the active concern for a person’s life and growth. The second is responsibility, responding to their expressed and unexpressed needs, esp. emotional needs. The third is respect, the ability to see a person as they really are, to be aware of their unique individuality and consequently, wanting that person to grow and unfold as they are. These three actions all depend on the fourth, knowledge. You can care for, respond to, and respect another only as deeply as you know them. The effect of genuine giving is profound. It allows you into another person’s world and opens you up to receiving their goodness. At the same time, it means investing a part of yourself in the other, enabling to love that person as you love yourself. In conclusion love is also a behavior, a relationship thrives when two partners are committed to behaving lovingly through continual, unconditional giving-- not only saying, "I love you" but showing it! See, in the end love is really overrated and inexplicable. People come into your life for a reason, a season or a lifetime. When you know which one it is, you will know what to do for that person. When someone is in your life for a REASON, it is usually to meet a need you have expressed. They have come to assist you through a difficulty, to provide you with guidance and support, to aid you physically, emotionally or spiritually. They may seem like a Godsend and they are. They are there for the reason you need them to be. Then, without any wrongdoing on your part or at an inconvenient time, this person will say or do something to bring the relationship to an end. Sometimes they die. Sometimes they walk away. Sometimes they act up and force you to take a stand. What we must realize is that your need has been met, our desire fulfilled, their work is done. The prayer you sent up has been answered and now it is time to move on. Some people come into your life for a SEASON, because your turn has come to share, grow or learn. They bring you an experience of peace or make you laugh. They may teach you something you have never done. They usually give you an unbelievable amount of joy. Believe it, it is real. But only for a season! LIFETIME relationships teach you lifetime lessons, things you must build upon in order to have a solid emotional foundation. Your job is to accept the lesson, love the person and put what you have learned to use in all other relationships and areas of your life. It is said that love is blind but friendship is clairvoyant. Thank you for being a part of my life, whether you were a reason, a season or a lifetime. REDEMPTION

Why do we need love?

The Beatles believed it. Mary J. Blige crooned about it. And Alfred Kinsey (the doyen of all things sex, love and lust), surmised that love is the answer to everything; (only sex brings up a lot more interesting questions).

So why are we so desperate to be loved? Is it because we've been fantasizing about our dream white wedding ever since we were eight years old and played kissing catchers with bridal Barbie and Ken? Is it because we don't feel valued until someone else can truly love us - flaws, warts, hairy legs and all? Or is it because we're afraid to be alone? And do we choose to fall in love, or is it something we're simply hardwired to do?

Either way, the dating industry seems to be making a motza out of exploiting our inexplicable hunger to love and be loved, evidenced by the ever-rising battalion of relationship books currently sitting up on my desk, in a pile large enough to shock even Dr. Phil out of his suspenders ...

"Ten commandments of dating!", "The Street Guide to Flirting!", "How to change a man!", "The Hookup Handbook!" "How to find love in just ten days!" Argh! And while the authors of these books occasionally do a semi-respectable job of attempting to tell us how to date (and understand) the objects of our affection, the majority don't seem to deal with the more pressing issue at hand: why we are so desperate to find love. Why do we need it? What's in it for us?

Speaking of Dr. Phil, (and these days I'm not sure who is the bigger publicity hound, him or Britney), his motto for women in his bestselling tome Smart Love: Fix the One You Want - Fix the One You Got, is somewhat disappointing to me, feeding on our insatiable hunger for love, without really explaining why we need it. By his reckoning it's time to "start being a bride instead of a bridesmaid" (sounds more like a line out of a Katherine Heigl flick to me) and hence we should embark on the GPS (Great Partner Search), with all the precision and hunger of a Surviver contestant fighting for immunity.

Thankfully anthropologist and love-expert Helen Fisher of Rutgers University has realised we're seriously lacking in information and has penned the definitive guide on the subject titled Why we need love. Her theory? The need to be loved is a physical drive no different to hunger, and comprises of three different facets: sex (which gets you out of the house and on the hunt); romantic love (which gives you those first-love giddy emotions), and attachment (long-term fulfilment).

"People don't die for sex," she told Good Morning America. "I've at looked at poetry all over the world, even as much as 4,000 years ago. People live for love, they die for love, they sing for love, they dance for love."

And the most unusual part of her research? It's the men that are the big love softies after all! "Men fall in love faster than women do, because men are so visual," she notes. "And three out of four people who kill themselves over love are men, not women."

So back to why we need love.

Fear of loneliness

Is it fear of loneliness? Helen Gurley Brown, the former editor-in-chief of women's bible Cosmopolitan magazine and author of Sex and The Single Girl (1962), says the answer is a resounding yes. (In taking a stand against this common belief, she refused to get married until she aged 37 and the right man had finally come along.)

"I believe that as many women over thirty marry out of being alone someday - not necessarily now but some day, as for love of or compatibility with a particular man," she writes.

My Single Female Friend (who by the way is a blonde bombshell who recently got burnt by a bona fide bad boy), is testament to Gurley Brown's hypothesis as she recently declared that she desperately wants a man because, "I am just so damn lonely".

(I didn't have the heart to tell her that the stench of desperation is a bigger buzz-killer than unshaven legs and a text from an ex in the middle of sex.)

But as one blogger recently wrote in an email to me: "loneliness is unattractive," and the more lonely and desperate singletons come across, the more unattractive they'll seem.

Society tells us we do

Another theory as to why we're all so obsessed with finding love is because society tells us we need to. As Gurley Brown writes; "I think a single woman's biggest problem is coping with the people who are trying to marry her off!" (And I'm sure many women can attest to that.)

We can't love ourselves until someone else does

Finally, while they say that we can't truly love another before we learn to love ourselves, what if that statement were the other way around? What if we truly couldn't love ourselves until someone else came along and stuck a "taken" sign on our forehead? Will we then feel like someone else can love us and therefore we can finally love ourselves? Now there's food for thought ...

Why do you need love and to be loved? Do you think people need love as much as food and sex? Who falls in love faster: men or women?

Too my one true love.

When nights are long & friends are few,
I sit by my window & think of you,
A silent whisper, a silent tear,
I love you with all my heart,
I wish you were here

- Stephen Watson -

Breaking Up 101

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