Day Forty Nine

A few days ago, I saw two guys on campus with a white board who were surveying random students as they walked by. Their question was: "Is love a choice or a feeling?" To me the answer was obvious at first, so I was surprised to see a fair amount of tally marks on both sides, which got me thinking, "What is love?"

First, I want to share my opinion, but then I wanted to share with you some interesting responses I got from posing the question to Facebook and imgur. So, here it goes:

I don't think there's a choice when it comes to falling in love. Sure, you can choose whether or not you act on the feelings you have for someone else, but having those feelings in the first place I don't think is something you can control. Love isn't something you can turn on and off like a light switch.

Where choice comes in is when you face conflict - you can choose to fight for a relationship and maintain the love that you have, or you can choose to let it go. If you choose to let it go, however, you're not choosing to stop loving that person (hence the reason so many people have feelings for their exes, even if they're the ones who broke up with them in the first place). What you're choosing is freedom for your feelings to be whatever they please.

I don't choose to love Sam, but I choose to do everything I can to make our relationship work so we don't lose that love. It's a cycle really: Because we love each other, we want to do everything we can to keep that love strong, and because we put in the effort to have a strong relationship, the feelings we have for each other remain. In that way, it's really difficult to separate feeling from choice because choice is driven by feeling.

Here are the best, most interesting and most thought-provoking responses I received after asking the question. I decided to include their relationship status in there if I knew, just for more of a perspective.


"Yes."


"I believe love is a feeling to begin with, but after all the lust and romance fades away, you have to make the choice to continue to love them. Relationships built on what I call “love lust” will not survive for an extended period of time, all relationships change and the sparks fizzle down and you are left with the person for who they really are, not what your hormones have been telling you they are. Love is a choice, when you’re fighting with a partner, having disagreements, you most likely do not have the feeling of love but if you’re committed to the success of the relationship, you love them anyways. Every relationship comes to a point where you make a conscious decision to love someone."

~Single

"I think love is definitely a feeling... I fell in love with my current boyfriend. He is wonderful in every way and although I made the choice to be and stay with him, I have no control over whether or not I love him every day. It just happens because of the way he makes me feel. That being said, I love another...I would never choose it. He is a classmate and a friend, and as soon as I realized what I felt, I was miserable. I would never, in my right mind, choose to fall in love with someone other than my boyfriend. It happened and every day I wish it didn't. I've made the choice to try and stop loving him, but it won't stop until it stops... and I have no control over that."

~ Obviously in a relationship

"I choose to no longer love my ex. But I could if I wanted to. Does that mean I still love him?"


"I think 'real love' happens when a person makes a well thought out choice, or finds themselves behaving in a way that is cohesive with the rest of their mental content AND that choice generates a good gut response and - ideally - lasting positive evaluation.real love does not tear you apart. Real love does not flicker. Real love does not allow for much doubt about what it is.The trouble with seperating 'thinking' love and 'feeling' love is that your brain isn't supposed to work that way. The common medium of feelings and thoughts is 'values' and 'belief'. Viceral feelings and ephemeral thoughts contribute to the structure of your values over a life time and when you find someone to love, the act of loving them resonates with your values, generating thoughts and feelings. Either of them can trick you into thinking you've pinpointed the reason for your actions but your huuuge subconscious will do what it does, gnomesayin?"


"It's definitely a feeling!! You can't choose who you want to fall in love with, it just happens and you don't really get to choose if you love them or not, and then once you have fallen in love with them, you have no choices and you end up loving every little thing about that person. As long as they don't betray you or hurt you..."

~ Married

"LOVE is both a choice and a feeling! It is a choice at first because for like to turn into love it is work! However then it happens and the feeling takes over and you are in Love, however everyday you have to continue to work to maintain that love!"

~ Single

I know that you, reader, have an opinion on this, and I'd love to hear it. Just leave a comment right down here :)