your opinion on love..

"it is better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all."

do you agree or disagree with this statement? why or why not?

i'm still on the fence..

don't mind if i fall apart, 
there's more room in a broken heart

you're not fully human until you've had your heart broken

and you're not fully divine until you choose to love again anyway

that's interesting nomo....guess i won't be doing the divine bit 

the valleys of your pain carve the mountains of your joy. (something like that - khalil gibran)

not to mention, the things that you learn from lost love - why did you lose it? how can you not lose it when you find it again?

Having your heart broken definitely pushes your perceptions in unexpected directions- as does finding true love.

IMO, it depends on the person and their experiences, and how they react to the loss.

For me, yes, I agree with it.  Were I to lose my husband tomorrow, I would not be wishing the past 17 years had never been, that our little boys were never born. There's no way to know if my life would have been better or worse without him, but I do know I'm happy, and that I'm a better person for having loved him.

And then there are relationships that despite the love, real or imagined, are flat out toxic.  For instance, people in relationships that end up with one or both people dead (suicide or homicide), probably would have been better off without it.

I would not trade one moment of my marriage away for less pain now.

Absolutely agree with it - to never feel that connection with another would be a shame.  Whether it is a lover or a friend, we need to feel connected to other people - without it we wouldn't survive. 

Though if you asked me after my last break up, my answer would have been totally different ....

I'm not sure. Usually I'd give a resounding YES, of COURSE its better to have loved and lost, but recently I started to see a boy that I knew was leaving for the Navy ( I had resisted seeing him for that reason). We'd been seeing each other for about a month-- nothing too long or anything-- but he left recently and I've been a total mess! Its absurd-- I wouldn't call it love or anything-- but we got really close over the last few months (prior to being really official I guess) and its so hard for him to be gone now that I think it might have been better to not have done it at all =S It would certainly be easier to forget now that he's gone...

I just hope that things work out for the better when he comes back, otherwise I might have to go with the "better to not have loved at all" route =( So much of you goes into missing someone you care about when they leave that its really hard to enjoy what you have without them.

disagree. love HURTS and SUCKS, but then again it probably varies upon person.

Absolutely. Nothing in life is going to last forever, including love. That doesn't mean it's not important or valuable while it does last. It doesn't feel that way when you first lose someone, and you don't want to get out of bed for a few days, but being in love makes you realize things about yourself and life that you never would have known otherwise. It's also nice to be able to look back on a past relationship and realize it doesn't hurt to think about it anymore.

I'm not sure on this one either.

I've never been in love. I've never had my heart broken, or any of those feelings that go along with it.
I don't trust people, which makes it easy for me not to fall in love. I just try to not get too emotionally invested in anyone.

My current boyfriend is awesome, but I still can't get myself to let go...or to trust him..at all.

That probably sounds bad...and I'll probably change my opinion on it eventually.

I believe in true love...but sometimes you have to kiss a lot of frogs to find your prince!

"That which does not kill us makes us stronger"  In the case of love and loss, I believe this to be completely true.  There's no feeling in the world like being in love, and although losing that love hurts like hell when it happens, it causes us to grow and learn from our mistakes.  I don't believe I ever would have truly appreciated how wonderful my fiance is if I hadn't had my heart broken before. 

Also, think about this line from Steel Magnolias: "I'd rather have thirty minutes of wonderful than a lifetime of nothing special"

According to Washington Irving: "Love is never lost. If not reciprocated, it will flow back and soften and purify the heart."

Tends to be a source of misery for me, though I can't deny it's a powerful emotion.

Love saved my life. :)

Original Post by cptbunny:

Love saved my life. :)

Same here. I think love is a powerful thing, and its what you make of your experiences. I absolutely detest it when someone falls deeply in love with someone, and then it doesn't work out and they let it turn them cynical. Love does hurt, but I don't think a person should ever avoid love. I think people need love, I really do.

If the world in general had more love I don't think we'd have as much trouble as we do today (and in the past). =/ Just because something can hurt doesn't mean it's bad. Giving birth hurts, and look at the outcome. ;)

Also:

And if you can love once, you can love again. Saying that you can't will only make it harder to love and you end up avoiding it and in the end you're alone and sad and complain about how love sucks etc because you decided not to give it a 2nd/3rd/4th/98th/another chance.

Agreed.

I'm still very optimistic about love, more so than most people, and my last boyfriend died.

I can understand being hurt by someone that you put your guard down for sucks, or that being betrayed sucks, or being cheated on sucks, but depriving someone else of the chance of loving you just because the last person hurt you isn't fair. Plus it feels really "teenager-y" to say you can't love again and that you don't trust anyone and blahblahblah

I don't know if that made sense, I'm really tired, haha.

Let's be realistic, life in general can suck at times, so nothing will ever be perfect in one's life. Does that mean you give up on life?

The costs of intimacy outweigh the benefits.