important exes and the Love of your life

soulmates
lovers
two peas in a pod

i dunno?

hmmm. this is why i need a phrase! it's quite hard to explain...

xpost.

based on our oft-discussed theory that 'the one' is too exclusionary, since there are often more than one big love in a life. but there are also many relationships that are just comfortable, or only passionate, or whatever, which are all part of the 'small-l love' spectrum.

and the life-changing ones, we call Big-L Love.

it works as a decent shorthand for us.

xpost by many

I have one very specific person that I refer to as the "Love Of My Life" (usually I prefix the term "Great Lost" in front of it, as well.)

I'm with Colette on the Big-L and little-l aspect. "The One" is a myth because statistically speaking, there are quite a few potential "One"s. In a previous century, with a small social setting, a person would only ever meet one The One. In our transient society, with the vast distances we travel and the huge amount more people in the world, and the huge amount more people that we *meet*, I think it's pretty unrealistic to expect there will only be one Great Love in your life.

At least, that's the thought that is getting me through right now.

Could we get back together? Nah, it wouldn't work out. Do we still love each other? Probably, though it comes down to definitions I guess.

Love and Hate are really really closely related. They're not opposites at all. The opposite of both is apathy, not each other. They're both passions, they're both consuming, they both make you do stupid or brave things. It's much easier to turn love into hate than it is for love to actually just go away.

That's sort of where I am right now. When you've been experiencing a love as huge and important as my love for Joe was/is, that doesn't just go away overnight. You can turn it into hate, and let that hate dissipate, but you can't actually just erase a love that is that deep.

God, yeah, this is how I feel about the Great Lost Love Of My Life. It's like... wow, this guy is fantastic, I love him to bits, he's a lot like me in every way, we clicked in a way that I've never clicked with anyone else, utterly instantly, friendship/lust/everything at first sight. The first time I talked on the phone to him, before I even met him, I thought "My god, you're really special" and when I met him, I thought "You're freaking gorgeous!"

Could I ever be in a relationship with him? I couldn't be in a relationship with him for two weeks! He's better for me as the eternal crush; the one that got away.

The trouble is, I think, all the words in this thread are already so value-loaded. As I said, we both realise we couldn't ever have got back together because it wouldn't have worked. That doesn't mean we don't still care for each other, just that we're adult enough now to know what we're both like.

(The ex-wife is totally, totally different though - one day I may tell some bits, but there are many reasons and other people are not one of them.)

What's annoying me especially with Joe right now is the knowledge that it *could* so easily have worked, if a couple of things were/had been slightly different. That's so much more frustrating, that we never got the chance to try to tweak those things and/or one or the other of us refused to tweak those things.

I think Joe was OK with my GLLOYL because he knew the same thing, in fact, he thought it was kind of sweet.

But then again, that depends on how secure you feel. Hasbeen, for example, used to FREAK at the very thought of my GLLOYL. But that's coz he was a freak, and that's another story...

I think they call it moving on. It just takes time, and moves at different speeds

Knowing the name aldo occasionally attaches to his ex-wife, it'll be interesting if he ever decides to tell "some bits".

have i got an impatient reputation?*

i'm not sure 'Love' or even caring for someone, is the important factor - it's perhaps more to do with an impact than anything. the power of feeling rather than the depth. gaaaaad, i am so inarticulate....

maybe that scene in Citizen Kane (everett sloane being interviewed by the journalist) where he says "I only saw her for one second. She didn't see me at all. But I'll bet a month hasn't gone by since that I haven't thought of that girl.” in a less extreme sense, that's what i think.

I tend to think of TGLLOYL quite frequently, at least once a month, and sometimes several times a day when single, but more because he's kind of a benchmark of sorts, rather than actually thinking about *him*.

There's another Ex I used to think about on a fairly regular basis, but more because he caused me such psychological damage that I was still dealing with it. I think about him less and less as time goes by. That's called healing.

I think what holds me back from being healed, is that I still have a sense that most of the psychological damage my ex 'caused' me was, in retrospect, my own fault, for not being more guarded, for believing what I wanted to believe, for not giving up on the 'relationship' shortly after it began. I'm aware that I have the capacity to be so hurt again, and I can't be friends with her for that reason, and I can't quite forgive myself for what I put myself through.

What really helped me out in that regard was talking to other women who had also gone out with him, finding out that they had been through the SAME hell with him, and realising, it was *none* of our faults. Maybe this is something that therapy can and will help with.

Being an optimist and a romantic is *not* a fault. Being an abusive fuckwit that takes advantage of others is the fault.

this is so true, and so difficult to get over.

(ps am changing email address from hereon in, to obscure my identity a little)

the context is a little different than other things on this thread. basically a guy i knew as a pen pal and phone friend long distance when i was in high school who was a friend of a friend, we met in person a couple years later, and it was like kate described...

I've never clicked with anyone else, utterly instantly, friendship/lust/everything at first sight. The first time I talked on the phone to him, before I even met him, I thought "My god, you're really special" and when I met him, I thought "You're freaking gorgeous!"

we've never lived in the same place, when he's visited me or i've visited him (or kidnapped him, one summer), it's absolute bliss. and we've both danced around the fact that if we were in the same place we'd have to give it a go, because it just is out there.

so now i'm vaguely involved with only the second guy that has ever completely rocked my world, who is basically acting like a jackass again (expected, but still not fun), and i have to admit that i'm thinking about what it would be like with penpal...

i would never ever move to be with someone, but i can't help but think about it, including wondering if either of us will be able to 'settle down' knowing the other one is out there somewhere and not with us.

sorry, just wanted to rant about it a little. not anything serious, just thoughts on a boring but beautiful friday afternoon...

i guess it was just the first time since i've gotten here that i actually thought twice about leaving, and he was certainly the icing on the cake.

the current boy is the biggest L of all of them. We're giving it a second go-round. I have this feeling we'll be advancing and retreating for the rest of our lives.

or if you see her
(different one) with her bald
married schlump boyfriend

wtf get out of my head pls its after midnight in 2014

Regrets, I've had a few
But then again, too few to mention
I did what I had to do and saw it through without exemption
I planned each charted course, each careful step along the byway
And more, much more than this, I did it my way.

a fun thought exercise for ruining your night is imagining someone who broke your heart saying the lines aimless quoted, with the cavalier nonchalance of sinatra

ya kinda otm rly

i'm quite lucky in that i've been able to successfully dismiss all previous relationships as insufficiently functional to be 'the love of my life' or somesuch rot

the flipside of this is that i don't feel i've ever been in a functional relationship, and i wouldn't mind one as it happens - i feel i'm rather missing out

but yes, godspeed all y'all relationship considerers

I've never understood the "love is closely related to hate" or "hating the one you love" concepts, etc.

The thing about someone you love is that they matter to you. They matter a lot. And when your relationship has friction, that friction is worse than friction with anyone else, because it really hits you where you live. And if the friction continues long enough or strikes deep enough, you can get tangled up in the dark side of your extreme closeness to where your love can flip to hate.

That's why you need to work together on those sore points and fix them as you go along.

i still find it somewhat unbelievable that my important exes are now married

and have kids

like

i don't think that necessarily means, like, we never have another shot

yeah, i know

imagining someone who broke your heart saying the lines aimless quoted, with the cavalier nonchalance of sinatra

Sinatra was kind of a bigger asshole than any of my exes, is the thing. He was a bigger asshole than most people.

http://i59.tinypic.com/4lhk7d.jpg

Watch it, pal.

never heard that Paul anka wasn't anything but OK tbh

He's a Canadian.