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From: kaufman@uiucdcs.CS.UIUC.EDU
Newsgroups: net.singles
Subject: How Do We Love?
Message-ID: <26600148@uiucdcs>
Date: Mon, 18-Nov-85 15:13:00 EST
Article-I.D.: uiucdcs.26600148
Posted: Mon Nov 18 15:13:00 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 20-Nov-85 00:42:28 EST
Lines: 42
Nf-ID: #N:uiucdcs:26600148:000:2437
Nf-From: uiucdcs.CS.UIUC.EDU!kaufman    Nov 18 14:13:00 1985


[not approved by Committee for a Macho Net; parental discretion advised]

While this net has gone over (with predictable results) the question, "What is
love?" I don't recall seeing anyone discuss the question of how people become
in love with each other.  I intentionally avoided using the word "fall" in
the previous sentence; many of you perceive a distinction between loving and
being in love, perhaps based on degree of commitment, but I would like to
consider both together.  Specifically, how does it become that one person
attains a high degree of commitment to another?  A related and interesting
converse is the question, why does one's commitment to another sometimes
decrease sharply?

First, there are several things we can immediately eliminate as major factors
in determining degree of commitment.  It's certainly not their looks,
nor even their opinions and behavior; while all of these may influence
your initial attitude, the fact that she's a Republican or that he rides
a motorcycle will usually have little effect on your ultimate commitment
to these people, given that you get to know them at anything more than the
shallowest of levels.  External factors would appear to be even less relevant,
unless you believe you love her because Venus was in Leo when you met, or
was it just a nice sunny day?

So if it's not the other person or any external influence that fully affects
one's degree of commitment, it must be whatever's left that is the major
influence on one's becoming in love.  What's left is, of course, the self.
Love is like a faucet (followups to net.jokes :-); one can turn it on and
off at will with only a bit of mental discipline.  I know that sounds
awfully clinical, but it doesn't have to be at all, if one properly uses
it.  Think of your closest relationships, and ask yourself why you committed
yourself to the degree you did.  I expect that most of you will find the answer
to be that you decided it would be that way.

What's the point of all this?  Perhaps it's just that I'm in the minority in
that I believe Tom Frye when he says he loves those two women he met in
Oregon.  Why, I even feel half-close to those three, though I don't think
I've even had the pleasure of exchanging mail with any of them, let alone
meeting them.  Impossible?  No.  Silly?  Perhaps.  Ill-advised?  Not at all.
Sentence fragments?  Sure.

Ken Kaufman (uiucdcs!kaufman)
"Mashed potatoes can be your friend."