Let’s Talk About Love (Maybe)

INTRO

I guess it’s a bit strange that we need to talk about love, right? We should feel it. But lately, I’ve noticed that, globally, we seem to feel love less and less. And I’m not just talking about wars between countries and other disasters (which are just symptoms), but about the war within ourselves - rising visits to therapists, the flood of hate on social media.

Do you remember your mini-me, the kid version of yourself? How would they describe love? Mine would probably say something like, “It’s when everyone around me is happy.” And yes, that comes from my own experience - growing up, I didn’t see many happy people around me. In my opinion (which mostly matters only to me), we tend to love what we lack. I noticed this through my own reflections and the ideas of certain philosophers.

Since it’s Valentine’s Day weekend, talking about love feels relevant - especially when you’re single (again). Usually, you either avoid it or ignore it. But this year, I’ve been open to analyzing the concept of love and finding some answers for myself.

PHILOSOPHERS' THOUGHTS

If we go back to ancient times, there were several smart dudes (who we assume actually existed) with interesting thoughts about love. In Symposium, Plato describes love (eros) as the ultimate desire for beauty and wisdom. His idea is that physical beauty comes first, and then you analyze everything else. He would have loved Tinder or Grindr.

Another ancient dude, Aristotle, introduced humans to the friends with benefits concept. In Nicomachean Ethics, he explores love through the lens of deep friendship. He even categorizes friendships into three types: those of pleasure, utility, and virtue. Very detailed of him.

These two lived centuries before Christ, so whatever they thought about love didn’t help Jesus survive. Even back then, people struggled to love those who were different from them, and the crucifixion of Jesus is proof of that.

Many years later, one of my favorite philosophers also had something to say about love. In Ethics, Spinoza describes love as “joy accompanied by the idea of an external cause.” He saw love as something deeply tied to rationality, when we truly understand something, love follows as an expression of that understanding.

But as we know, information can be wildly different, and we can fall in love with so many things. That’s why the father of morality, Immanuel Kant, made a distinction: there’s pathological love, based on raw instincts and emotions, and practical love, which is grounded in moral duty and goodwill toward others. Obviously, Kant preferred the second option, otherwise, he wouldn’t be the daddy of morals.

Schopenhauer was boring and came to the conclusion that love is just a biological impulse to reproduce. Even though he was well-known for having affairs with women of lower social status - prostitutes and servants, lol he was searching for something.

Later philosophers analyzed and criticized the classical understanding of love. Feminist thinkers started discussing the unfair position of women in love, as historically, they often didn’t have the freedom to choose their partners. Others began breaking love down into smaller constructs, like Erich Fromm, who categorized love into brotherly love, motherly love, erotic love, and self-love.

MY THOUGHTS

And here, I’ll pause and include my own experience of love. Because no matter how much I analyze it, I will always compare it to my own understanding and personal database. So, it’s only fair that you’re on the same page as me.

From the very beginning of my life, I saw two people who couldn’t stand each other. One was avoidant, the other had attachment issues. Their love was tragic, and it immediately became an example of what kind of love I don’t appreciate. As I later learned, this model is actually quite common in our society.

I also grew up in a very hateful environment. When I was born, not even a decade had passed since Lithuania regained independence from the Soviet Union. The country was rebuilding itself, and those were harsh years - both economically and mentally. People were losing and redefining their identities and understandings.

During my school years, I didn’t believe in “one true love.” I had an example that sometimes, you just have to try again, honestly. But nothing serious happened until I had my longest relationship, which started when I was at university. For more than three years, I was with another human - living together, navigating life. It was an interesting experiment, an experience that intertwined many of the ideas philosophers have explored throughout history.

I met my ex through a dating app. Plato is probably staring at me from above, asking if it was physical at first. And I can’t say no, because our first date ended with sex all night, with one pause for kebabs. And then we got stuck. The beginning was rough, we had to figure out what we wanted from each other. And then we stuck for longer.

Time passed. We moved in together. Built things. Worked on our own goals and each other’s. And even when we broke up, we decided to stay friends - to continue this love on another level, one that doesn’t involve owning another human.

Even though I’m not a big fan of ancient philosophy, I’d say Aristotle’s idea of deep friendship helped us preserve our bond. Choosing human love over passion. And somewhere, Plato is nodding in approval, his good morals intact.

But that doesn’t mean one event in my life shaped my entire understanding of love. After my serious relationship, my life changed a bit. And so did my understanding of love.

You see, in Catholic countries, the idea of having one serious relationship is deeply ingrained. So when it ends, you feel like you’ve done something wrong. You get lost, drifting into a dark space, searching for something that might not even exist.

As someone who didn’t experience much love in childhood, I craved it even more after my first real relationship.

I started actively dating, getting into relationships that weren’t necessarily what I was looking for. A lot happened. A lot of passion. Many fights. Many unforgettable moments. I met people who promised me a future while battling addictions so severe they couldn’t even promise themselves tomorrow. I met people who made me mixtapes - only to disappear a week later. I had four-month situationships that, in the end, became irrelevant because they weren’t real relationships. I had an engagement that never turned into marriage. I had countless one-night stands, sex parties. I was with people who had kids, people who had money, and people who had nothing at all.

Did they bring love? Not romantic love. But they definitely brought self-love.

With every painful experience, I felt distancing myself from the idea of having someone by my side. It felt like love - and the way we seek it - had turned into pure consumerism. And it has. People aren’t careful with each other’s feelings anymore. We swipe, we text, we test. If it doesn’t work, we go back to swiping.

If something breaks, we buy a new product. It can come from a fancy store, or it can come from Temu.

CONCLUSIONS

This brings me back to Erich Fromm. His ideas about self-love came relatively late in history - along with psychoanalysis and Freud - in the 20th century. It took fighting wars for humanity to realize that maybe, before loving someone else, we should start by loving ourselves. And so we began discussing our emotional needs.

The truth is, we live in a dangerous society. One built on survival and competition. That means even a romantic partner can become an enemy if we’re not working on ourselves. History has shown that love can turn into violence, abuse, or even murder when one or both partners are mentally unwell and in pain.

They say that nowadays, every third marriage ends in divorce. A huge number of children grow up without at least one parent.

So yes, we need to talk about love. We need to talk about what we wanted as children. Why?

Because it’s the only way to break this cycle of misunderstanding love. Of course, love is complex. Of course, no one can truly define it except for the person experiencing it. But to even attempt to define it, we need to know that we are capable of love.

To build love, we need conversations. We need agreements. We need to stop wasting each other’s time and well-being. When we meet someone, we should talk about what love means to us. That’s even more important than knowing what they do for work. Because when we understand how another person loves, we can decide whether our values align, whether we can truly build something together.

So let’s step back from the feelings stage and return to the talking stage. The world has been drowning in feelings for years. And when those feelings weren’t processed, people hid them - leading to anxiety, unresolved emotions, and addiction.

But if there’s one thing we can do for ourselves, it’s to start talking about the love we need. First, so we can give it to ourselves. Then, we can share it with others. Therapy, self-reflection, yoga, religion, communities - there are many paths, no right, no wrong ones. But if we keep procrastinating, if we keep convincing ourselves that we don’t need to understand love, we’ll keep running into walls. And worse - we’ll keep starting wars.

Keep loving, humanity. Keep loving yourself.