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Truths about love


15 Truths About Love We Tend To Forget

“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.Love never fails.”

Although this quote may be the most famous quote on love, taken straight from the Gospels, most of us have a hard time putting this kind of love into practice. Most of the time, we are lost in fantasies about love involving highly romanticized visions of perfect dates, romantic evenings, and finding a life partner who perfectly understands us at all times. We imagine love as this rush of feelings that continue to last forever. We imagine finding THE ONE – an ideal person who complements us in every possible way and satisfies our every need. The only problem with that vision is that it is false. Inevitably, our romanticized ideals about love leave us with unrealistic expectations for any partner who might come along, even if they are the real deal.

Here are 15 truths about love that we tend to forget when imagining our perfect relationship.

1. Love is a choice.

We tend to forget that feeling love for another person and choosing to love them is a choice that we make. It is different from feelings of lust which are often intense, of short duration, and involuntary. We choose to love. No one else can make you fall in love with him or her, no matter how hard they may try.

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2. Love is not infatuation.

Too often, we confuse love with what is actually infatuation. Infatuation is a rush of feelings that generally borders on obsession. Love is not an obsessive feeling. Love does not result in feeling possessive of one another. Love is a sustainable emotion. Infatuation is not. After the initial rush of intense feelings, infatuation dissipates until another possible lover is discovered; whereas love is long-lasting.

3. Love takes time.

Personally, I don’t believe in “love at first sight”. Real love takes time to develop.  Love requires trust and really knowing the other person – their character, interests, beliefs, behaviors, and deeply held core values. You can feel infatuation and lust towards someone based purely on physical attraction at first sight. But there is no way you can deeply know, trust, and respect that person right from the get-go. Love, admiration, and respect take much longer to develop and grow. With time, real love strengthens as you build trust. Love makes you feel physically safe and emotionally secure with your partner.

4. Love requires patience.

Along with time, love requires patience. We can’t love another person unless we learn to be patient with ourselves, with the other person, and with things taking time to develop. Patience is an all-too rare commodity in this era of instant gratification. We expect instant results, next-day delivery, and romances that bloom overnight into soul-mate marriages. With patience, we allow the situation to unfold naturally, without rushing, demanding, or pushing the pace. Patience requires letting go and trusting that the universe will work things out the way they are meant to work out. Patience is not trying too hard or forcing something to happen. If it is meant to happen, trust that it will work out.

Love is a verb. Love is an action. Love requires effort and hard work to be fully realized. Love requires two people equally working at the relationship, in order for love to grow stronger. Love is not a one-way street.

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When we love another person, it is important to be fully present with him or her. It is extremely important to listen to what he or she has to say. Really being present in the moment with him/her and empathizing with that person when they share their story can mean the world. Listening and being present is the biggest and best gift that we can give one another. Listening, in this age of distractions, electronic devices, short attention spans, and self-centered absorption is difficult. We feel more important, respected, and special when someone really truly listens to what we have to say. Strive to be present physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. Work hard to stay present without ruminating about the past, or jumping ahead to the future. After all, the present is the only true reality. The past is conjured up from memories we have reconstructed in our minds, and the future is made up of mental fantasies that we play out in our heads. The present is all we really ever have.

7. Love is kindness.

Love should never hurt. We get confused when we think that love equals dramatic up and downs, intense feelings, fighting, making up, game playing, and dramatic pushing and pulling. Yes, maybe that is how we understood love in middle school. Maybe those behaviors make for a dramatic and exciting Hollywood romantic comedy. However, in reality, mature love between adults is consistent, kind, and stable. You should feel safe and secure with your partner – both physically and emotionally. Life is hard enough without having your partner cutting you down, being critical, or belittling your character. Love builds you up. Real love is when someone treats you with kindness and respect, even when you disagree – even when he or she is angry.

8. Love for yourself is a prerequisite, before you can love another.

We can only give away what we ourselves already possess. We can only feel love towards another person when we love ourselves, fully and entirely. We often mistakenly approach relationships as this obsessive hunt for “the one” who will finally complete us, fill up the lonely places in our hearts, make us happy, and meet all of our needs forever. Unfortunately, such expectations are doomed to fail. When we look to another to provide us with everything we can’t give to ourselves, we are setting up unreasonable expectations. We put a tremendous amount of pressure on our partner and unknowingly sabotage our relationship.

Only we know what we need, want, and desire. The only person who can make us truly happy is our self. If we expect our partners to provide this contentment, they will eventually disappoint. Inevitably, we will then dump our partner and go hunt for a new one who we think will finally be perfect for us, and perpetuate the cycle. Rinse. Recycle. Repeat. It is only when we love ourselves first and foremost, learn to take care of ourselves, meet our own needs, and build our own happiness, that we will ever be truly content with another person.

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9. Love is not selfish and self-absorbed.

When we love another person, we become bigger than ourselves. We are no longer self-centered. Our circle of care expands to include our loved one, and by default, other people. When we love, our capacity for empathy, compassion, and caring grows. On the other hand, if we are impatient, if we act selfishly and demand love or demand our needs be met in a certain way or at certain time, we are not ready for real love. This dynamic can also sometimes happen in toxic relationships, where one partner is emotionally abusive to another. Remember, love requires taking care of yourself first, while making concessions and compromises for another. Love is putting someone else’s needs above your own.

10. Love is being all in.

Above all, love is about being vulnerable. It’s about taking a risk and opening up our hearts to another person who may or may not leave us, who may or may not destroy our trust and faith, and who may or may not break our hearts. It’s a terrifying proposition. Being vulnerable and exposed is uncomfortable and unsettling. Most of us shrink back in fear when we experience real intimacy. Relationships take two people in agreement to begin, but they only take one person who wants to leave for them to end. It’s an unfair truth of the universe. However, really loving someone is about being all in. There is no safety hatch where you can play it safe by being half in and half out. Keeping one foot on the gas and one foot on the break while in a relationship is unpleasant, unfair, and unkind to your partner. This hesitant kind of love makes you small, cheap, and a coward. Be brave. Be courageous. Real love requires finding someone who is worthy of your trust. Real love means giving everything that you have, even when there are no guarantees.

11. Love is never perfect.

We all have ideals regarding love and relationships. We have this romanticized fantasy that when we finally meet our person, everything will fall into place. Love will be easy, it will be fun, and we will be happy and content. Yes, healthy relationships are for the most part fulfilling, satisfying, and joyful. But that doesn’t mean that they are absolutely perfect. It doesn’t mean that either person is perfect or always acting perfectly and ideally towards the other. No matter how wonderful your relationship might be, you will find yourself feeling annoyed at your partner at times. Your partner will say some senseless comment that will deeply hurt you, even when they had no intention of doing so.

Life is messy. Real relationships are about growing together, learning together, and negotiating compromise. We have to learn to state our needs and wants in an assertive, but non-threatening and non-blaming manner. If we expect our partner to read our mind and somehow know what we need and want without us having to say anything, we are dooming our relationship to failure.

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We also have to release our preconceived notions regarding how our ideal partner will be and how it should feel. We need to be open to the experience and let things unfold naturally. We need to practice patience and self-compassion, so we can be compassionate, forgiving, and empathetic towards ourselves and our partner when they inevitably disappoint us at some point. A perfect relationship exists when two people are not willing to give up on each other. Either you accept your partner just as they are, or you let them go. Don’t fault-find.

12. Love is about being with someone you can be yourself around.

Find someone who you can relax with and feel comfortable enough to be yourself around. Find someone who brings out your best. Find someone who loves you, who likes you as a friend, and accepts you just the way you are. Any person who makes you feel like you are small, less than, or not good enough you need to run away from. Immediately. There’s this quote I love that ties in perfectly with this advice: “ In a dating and courtship relationship, I would not have you spend five minutes with someone who belittles you, who is constantly critical of you, who is cruel at your expense and may even call it humor. Life is tough enough without having the person who is supposed to love you leading the assault on your self-esteem, your sense of dignity, your confidence, and your joy.”

13. Love feels like deep caring, friendship, respect, and admiration for another person.

We often wonder what “true love” should feel like. Well, it isn’t as hard as we might make it out to be. Love is that feeling of deep caring, friendship, respect and admiration for another person. Love takes time to develop. Love requires getting to know someone’s character and really liking that person. Ask yourself, if you weren’t dating your partner, would you still be good friends with him/her? Find someone who you love spending time with and who makes you want to be a better person.

14.  Love can take you by surprise…

…And it often does. Love usually happens when we least expect it. Love does not happen according to our schedule. We cannot just decide one day that we are going to fall in love on Tuesday at 4:21 PM. We can’t just order love to happen at this moment in our life. We can do this with career changes, with moving into a new home, or changing our activities and hobbies we enjoy. We cannot force love. We cannot rush love. Love almost certainly will not happen at the time that you want, in the way you want, and with the person that you expect that it will.

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15. Love is commitment.

Real love requires commitment by both people to make it work. There will always be other tempting options and attractive people out there. There might be the little question in the back of your mind wondering, “What if there is someone BETTER still out there?” However, real love happens when two people are ready to commit to each other. Love happens when both people are emotionally mature enough to ride the bumps, to grow, to learn and to build trust with each other, rather than always wondering if it might be easier with someone else. It isn’t. Real love requires work, commitment, patience, and perseverance. There’s a quote by Cheryl Strayed, author of the book TINY BEAUTIFUL THINGS, which summarizes this concept perfectly: “You cannot convince people to love you. This is an absolute rule. No one will ever give you love because you want him or her to give it. Real love moves freely in both directions. Don’t waste your time on anything else.”

10 Hard Truths About Love And Relationships No One Likes To Admit

Updated: Mar 19, 2018, 13:00 IST

Shraddha Varma

As much as we'd like them to be, relationships aren't about fairy tales in the modern-day dating scene. Okay, it may seem like it in the honeymoon stage - the first few months - but even that isn't smooth sailing for everyone. Unlike what movies show us, the real ones are all about ups and downs, shifting perspectives and roadblocks. We're all aware of the reality; however, we have a hard time comprehending and admitting it. It's important that we understand that it's okay to be vulnerable and show your partner your weaknesses. It's okay to question things and to have expectations. But the first step is admitting it to ourselves.

Here are 10 hard truths about relationships that we fear to admit.

1. Romance will fade away

Passion and romance will fade over time, but the trick is to not let it die completely. You won't be planning surprises for your partner all the time and he won't take you on dates every weekend. A middle path needs to be figured out here, so the bond stays strong.

2. Every relationship is different

Just because people around us are going about their relationships a certain way, it doesn't mean the same applies to ours too.

3. There are days when we regret being in a relationship

Yes, it happens to everyone and there's no shame in admitting it. A relationship can't be about happy times every single day; there will be moments or days when it'll make you feel shitty and miserable. However, most things can be resolved by communicating well with our partner.

4. More often than not, we dwell on our partner's weaknesses

What this does it build resentment and, over time, it festers, affecting the relationship in the long term. Instead of constantly thinking about where your partner is falling short, weigh it against the things they do and their strengths.

5. We often blame the relationship for our failures

We have to actually stop holding our relationship and partner responsible for our failures. Instead, we should take ownership of the mistakes we commit and try our best to correct it.

6. We try to hide our flaws, even from our partner

And that's a big mistake right there. There's no point in hiding who we really are or the mistakes we make from our SO; it's all going to come out sometime. In fact, by hiding our flaws we're actually keeping them away from who we truly are.

7. Ignorance is not bliss

Ignoring conflicts may give us a good night's sleep today, but in the long run, it will just become a bigger issue - one that might have the potential to ruin our bond forever.

8. Life isn't a Bollywood or TV drama

Bollywood and TV may be realistic, but they are certainly not reality. Your relationship isn't going to follow the same course. Things will not just come together magically, and there's not always a happy ending. You have to prepare yourself for heartbreak, in some form or the other.

9. We're all a little selfish

This may be one of the most brutal truths about relationships. We all like the concept of unconditional love, but, in reality, it's fiction. We do the things we do because we have a selfish motive at heart, even if it's as basic as happiness. And there's nothing wrong with that.

10. Relationships need more than love

Yes, love is needed. But, we also need friendship, mutual trust, compatibility, honesty, and more.

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Shraddha Varma

Relationships & Love

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The Truth About Love - Mark Manson

Written By Mark Manson

For most of human history, romantic love has been considered a disease. And that's why .

I will list just a few facts.

The first fact. At some stage of evolution, somewhere between plankton and Jon Bon Jovi, monkeys developed the ability to become emotionally attached to each other. This emotional attachment will eventually become known as "love" and evolution will spawn a bunch of New Jersey singers who will write millions of crappy songs about her. nine0003

Fact two. The ability to attach to each other - what we call love - appeared in people because it helped them survive. It doesn't sound very romantic or pleasant, but it's true.

Evolution gave us not big fangs, not huge claws and not insane strength, like a gorilla, no. Evolution has endowed us with the ability to become emotionally attached to the community in which we live, to our families, which has made us inclined to cooperate with each other. These communities and families proved to be far more effective than fang and claw. Soon humanity began to dominate the planet. nine0003

Fact three. Humans instinctively develop loyalty and attachment to those who show them greater loyalty and affection. This is what love is: an irrationally strong loyalty and attachment to another person - so strong that we are ready to suffer or even die for this person. Surprisingly, it was these butterflies in the stomach that helped the species, relying on each other, survive and populate the planet. And invent Netflix .

The fourth fact. nine0006 Take a moment and thank evolution for Netflix .

Fifth fact. The ancient Greek philosopher Plato argued that the highest form of love is such attachment to another person, in which there is neither sex nor romance. The so-called "brotherly love". Plato correctly noted that passion, romance and sex often make us do stupid things that we later regret. And “brotherly love”, meanwhile (between two family members, between two close friends), is the highest virtue that a person is capable of. Plato, like most people in the ancient world, was skeptical of romantic love—if not an absolute horror. nineFact six. As in many other cases, Plato came to this earlier than anyone. That is why love, in which there is no sex and romance, is called platonic ic.

Seventh fact. For most of human history, romantic love has been considered a disease. And if you think about it, it's easy to guess why: romantic love makes people (especially young people) do a lot of stupid things. Believe me. Once, when I was 21, I skipped school, bought a bus ticket, and traveled three states to surprise a girl I was in love with. She was just scared. Soon I was riding the bus back, just as alone as before. Here's an idiot. nine0003

But then I thought it was a great idea, such a beautiful romantic act. While I was driving there, I was overwhelmed with emotions, I almost went crazy. I plunged into the world of my fantasies, and I really liked it. Now it seems like some kind of stupidity that I did in my youth and in the absence of better ideas.

It was because of such things that ancient people were skeptical about romantic love. Moreover, in some cultures, it was considered a kind of disease that everyone should get over - like chickenpox. Classics such as the Iliad or Romeo and Juliet were not really an ode to love. They warned people about the potential negative consequences of love, showing how romantic love can destroy everything. nine0003

For most of human history, people didn't get married out of feelings. Feelings didn't matter in the ancient world.

Why then?

Because, damn it, there are fields to be plowed, cows to be fed, and, as luck would have it, Attila killed all your relatives from the next village.

There was no time for romance. And, of course, stupid behavior, which is often associated with love, was not welcome. There was too much work, otherwise you risk dying. Marriage was for procreation and financial matters. Romantic love, if allowed at all, was reserved for mistresses and lovers. nine0003

For most of human history, almost all people lived on the edge of survival. Their lifespan was shorter than my mother's cat. Everything they did was aimed at simple survival. Marriages were concluded not because people loved each other (especially not because they loved each other), but because their farms were well combined: some had wheat, others had barley; can be shared if there is a flood or drought.

Marriages were purely economic arrangements that contributed to the survival and prosperity of the families of the spouses. Therefore, if the youngest had something moving in his pants and he wanted to run away with a milkmaid to the city, it was not just stupidity, it was a threat to the survival of the community. That's how they looked at it. This was considered such a big betrayal that most ancient societies castrated boys to make sure they didn't want anything. This had, by the way, one positive effect - good choirs of boys were obtained. nine0003

That was until the industrial age, when everything changed. People began to work in cities and factories. Their income, and therefore their economic well-being, was no longer tied to the land. There was an opportunity to earn money without a family. There was no longer a need for inheritance and family ties, so the economic and political components of marriage lost their relevance.

The new economic realities of the 19th century, fueled by ideas that emerged during the Enlightenment (ideas about individual rights, the pursuit of happiness), led to the era of Romanticism. Fuck the cows, it's the 1800s, people's feelings suddenly matter. Now you need to marry not only for love, but also live in bliss all your life - that was the ideal. That is, the popular "and they lived happily until the end of their days" appeared about 150 years ago. nine0003

Then it was the 20th century, and somewhere between Hitler and several genocides, Hollywood, along with advertising agencies, seized on the idea of ​​"they lived happily ever after", procrastinating it for the next 100 years.

I'm all about the fact that romance, and all the meaning that we usually ascribe to it, is a modern invention. And it's promoted primarily by a bunch of businessmen who figured it would get people to buy movie tickets and/or new jewelry. As Don Draper once said, "What you call love was invented by people like us to sell stockings." nine0003

Romance is easy to sell. We all love it when a hero gets a girl. We like to see a happy ending. We like to believe in "living happily ever after." This is all great, but the business that arose in the 20th century took advantage of this. And he still uses it today.

Romantic love, and love in general, is far more complex than what we see in Hollywood movies and jewelry store commercials. Nowhere do we hear that love is also hard, boring work. Or that love can be unpleasant or even painful, that sometimes it can be something we don't want to feel. That love requires self-discipline and a certain amount of constant effort over years, decades, a lifetime. nine0003

Such truths are not very "exciting" and not very much sold.

The hard truth is that the real work on relationships starts after the curtain has closed. Real relationship work is boring, dull stuff that no one sees or appreciates. Love in pop culture is shown in a very limited way. All the nuances and complexities of a real-life relationship are stripped away to make for a gripping title, a crazy plot twist, and of course, everyone's favorite happy ending.

Musya Totibadze and her "The Truth about Love"

Music

Her disco clip "The Truth About Love", filmed by the classic Russian music video Grigory Konstantinopolsky in his signature ironic style, blew up the Internet. It is really impossible not to fall in love with the eighteen-year-old debutante.


Alexander Wang shirt (Podium Concept Store)

"The Truth About Love" is your only hit so far. How was this song born? nine0101

There is a group called Ship, and the soloist of the group is my father's old friend Alexander Shirnin. One fine day, he suddenly writes to me on Facebook: “Musya, I saw you sing something there, take it, I have a song, we never sang it, it’s so feminine, it’s a remake ...” And he sends me a sketch of a song where he sings. “Do with her,” he says, “whatever you want!” And I remembered that my friend Gosha Golitsyn had long been campaigning for me to get acquainted with the arranger and composer Vanya Lubennikov, and I called him. I wait a month, two, I think he forgot. But then he sends his version of the song and writes: "Come to work." nine0003

In this piece you recreate not only the golden years of disco, but there is also a flair of Soviet disco, which is generally surprising. Where does it all come from?

We have been working on it for a long time. This style of the 1970s was not given to me. You understand: aspiration, erotica. Vanya literally conjured me: “No, Musya, forget that you have an intelligent family, forget your roots.” At first, I got such a Zemfirov-like troll manner, but we didn’t need it. Vanya gave very good advice. For courage, I even drank a little. Maybe this is the veil of the Soviet disco and is? nine0003

So you only sing covers so far? Will there be your own material?

Yes, while she sang covers. I think it's ok to start with. But we have already recorded the second song and the third is on the way. And it turns out that it is much more difficult to sing your own material.

Will this be disco too?

I don't want to go to the disco at all. As a first step, it's good. But I'm still searching. I would like to try something different. The next song is even more crazy than the first one, I can't even imagine its future fate. Both her and the third were also invented by Alexander Shirnin. nine0003

Louis Vuitton dress

Chanel dress

Where did you learn to sing?

When I was seven or eight, my father gave me a guitar, and at first I only played it. I even had an idea that one day I would become such a red Jimi Hendrix. I went exclusively to guitar lessons and accompanied myself in children's songs: “If suddenly some wind blows ...” Then I went to a jazz club where both children and older people gathered, and there we played jams. But later I realized that I was not ready to give it really a lot of time, because the instrument is a delicate thing: either you practice five to seven hours a day, or forget it. And to be honest, it wasn't as interesting as the vocals. Therefore, I went to a vocal circle, where we sang hellish trash, which had nothing to do with educating musical taste. Well, okay, "Pesnyary" was still nothing. nine0003

You are eighteen. On the one hand, the whole life is ahead, on the other hand, you already need to choose what to do next. How does your family feel about your musical bias?

Good. There were periodic disputes with my mother, and my father always said: let's do it. My family never dictates what I should do or where I should go. Last year I was preparing, I entered the philosophical one, but I didn’t go, I took a gap year and studied music, and yes, it turned out to be productive, I liked it. nine0003

Will you be applying anywhere this year? Look, the exam may be outdated.

I thought about GITIS, the directing department, but we'll see how the situation develops.

However, do you want to make a musical career?

I have no career goals. I just strive to do what I want, without which I cannot, I want to be realized.

You have a wonderful creative family. Wondering what other kids in your family do? nine0101

My older brother Anton Totibadze is a graphic designer and artist, just like my father. The younger sister is eleven years old, and she already has the second adult category in swimming: two workouts a day, the first starts at six in the morning, the second after school. I have talented brothers and sisters.

Alexandr Rogov top and dress

I looked at your playlist, which you compiled at the request of one of the magazines. Classics of the 1990s, including "Electric Train", "Cocoa Cocoa", "Yellow Leaf Autumn", "Run From Me". Do you want to achieve this in your work? nine0101

I don't even know. But it's brilliant stuff! "Look into your eyes" - this was written by a genius. When you turn on these songs, the dance floor is yours. I argue about it with DJs all the time. Why don't you put on music that people really like? Here DJ Vitalik Kozak supports me. It's easier for me to dance when I understand what a thing is about. It is necessary to find such a genius who would come up with something like this for me! I don't know if I can do it myself.

How do you feel about the role of it-girl and socialite? Aren't you afraid that it will distract you from the music? nine0101

Socialite — no, I don't understand this status. It's kind of disrespectful, isn't it? In principle, I was so lucky with the environment that this is not my case - to become just a secular girl. I have a family taboo.

But did you like the Tatler ball you participated in?

That's cool.

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