I don’t think you can both love someone while also thinking they “don’t matter at all”. But maybe your definition of love is different.
A parent simply telling their child, unconditionally, that they love them isn’t enough. You have to believe they do matter and are worth something.
If you can say that about your child despite their many flaws, and potentially how they might hurt you [1], to me is what unconditional love is more about.
[1] That is, humans aren’t perfect, and will on occasion hurt other humans, to some extent — especially children that are still developing and trying to figure out what is and isn’t appropriate.
I don't think you're reading me properly. I think the statement is bs, not the feeling. Of course the individual matters! That's my entire point about the statement being bs.
And to the other half, of course the conditions are incredibly nuanced and context dependent and probably unknowable to boot. It's not some sort of "three strikes and you're out" situation.
> But isn't that what "unconditional" demands of you?
I think we're stuck on this word.
Unconditional means, to many, "without any conditions attached" i.e. I will love you even if you don't love me back. I will love you regardless of the amount of money, status, good looks, $FOO, $BAR or $BAZ you have.
I will love you, no matter the consequences, or the pain I will feel for doing so.
IOW, it is love you feel without control; if you have control over it, it is conditional.
I have not, until now, come across a definition of unconditional love to mean "I'm such a great person, I will love you even though you are not", or similar.
I agree the word is the sticking point. Unconditional to me means there is literally nothing that can change it. No conditions.
If you found out the relationship was a giant ruse created by a bored billionaire and the person began behaving completely differently because the contract ended: doesnt matter.
All sorts of wacky scenarios you can dream up.
I can't help but feel like saying unconditional love is a giant cop out. I love people for reasons. Important reasons. Some of those reasons can't change (e.g. you are my mom/dad/kid) but those aren't the only reasons. And it's important to me to communicate those attributes of people I love. And obviously the whole is bigger than the parts in some ineffable way. And I (try to) communicate that too.
But the whole concept of unconditional love says nothing. It is a cop out. And ultimately, a lie
Love is a choice, not a circumstance, and unconditional love is the strongest form of it. I choose to love you even if you stop having characteristics I like. I choose to love you regardless of any good or bad qualities you have. I love you because you are, but I'll even love you after you stop being (what else is grief?).
I don't know if you can understand it until you've received it. Until two years ago, I thought "love" itself was a lie we tell children to manipulate them into doing what we want, like Santa Claus.
But then somebody loved me. Somebody saw me, heard me, knew me, understood me. He found joy in my existence, often because of his own determination to do so, not because I was making it apparent.
He just loves me because I'm me and not him. If only one of us matters in this situation, from his perspective, it's me, not him. He wills my good for my sake, not his own, and even at his own expense.
You seem to be using "love" to mean something like "like a whole lot," and maybe that's why unconditionality doesn't make sense.
Love is an act of the will, not a response to a circumstance.
I think we'll simply agree to disagree. But suffice to say that I don't need you to explain love to me or tell me that what I feel isn't "real" love. And simply because we disagree on an adjective some people like to attach to their love and which I do not? How myopic and unnecessarily condescending of you.
I hope you experience unconditional love someday. I spent my whole life thinking, like you, that it wasn't real. That opinion was largely formed from infancy, by someone who did use it as you describe, to inflate his own beneficence at my expense.
All I can say is that I was completely and totally wrong about the nature of love (and, as I found out from that later, actually of the world). I don't think I could have understood that from someone's internet post about it. I may even have read their description of it as a condescending condemnation.
But it might have helped me hold out hope for what I now know to be true, hearing someone else insist it was real, against the unequivocal evidence of my entire life. And that hope would have been worth having.
I've vacillated a couple times on whether to respond to you, but apparently you've poked me in a place I can't just ignore and move on from.
My goodness you are a sanctimonious asshole. We are disagreeing about how to express extraordinary love. I think the common expression of "unconditional love" is both a shallow platitude and a lie. You think it is this over-the-moon perfect version of love. Fair enough, we disagree.
And yet, you have somehow twisted that into me not having experienced "unconditional love" that you apparently just discovered for yourself in the recent past? Do you always resort to debasing someone else's life experience when you disagree with their perspective?
The height of arrogance and foolishness you admit to is absolutely staggering! You claim this sole understanding of love, a question which has plagued and delighted humanity as far back as our history goes. And yet you, a person who has very recently fallen in love. Someone who confuses a partner who today sacrifices themselves for your benefit with one who will forever love you. You have it all figured out. You know the love I experience and give to my parents, my sister, my wife, my children. You know that it is not true simply because I think calling it "unconditional" is a shallow cop out. That I would deign to tell the people I love their attributes, our memories, our shared experiences and challenges, our disagreements, everything about us that is the reason I have love for them. Somehow, this expression which contains so much. This is less than the simple word "unconditional". What a farce.
I challenge you to actually describe your love for your new found partner. Be specific. Anything that could be used to describe some garden variety love between the main characters in a romantic comedy cannot be used. After you figure it out, tell them too. See if that description does not in fact strengthen your relationship and help your love grow.
I guess the one condition is that they ate the individual that they are, and not some other individual. So it matters that they are that specific individual (e.g. your child).
I find the concept problematic as well. In practice there can certainly be limits.
