True Love Essay Example

True Love Essay Alex True Love This is something that divides us as humans, with quite a lot of gray area in the middle. You will find people that swear to the truth of this and others that try to finally prove it false. Right now I see myself in the grey area, questioning. Does true love exist? Is it possible for everyone? I am not sure even what this is seeing as I have yet to be in love. I have often asked myself if there was a one true love for me and if someone somewhere was pulling the strings just right so that I would meet them or not. In recent years the divorce rate in America has gone up. Some say this is because women have become more independent and no longer feel the need to stay with a man in order to survive. I think that Americans have lost faith in an Ancient belief, true love. Or maybe the problem is that we are searching for something that doesn’t exist. Can true love scientifically be proven? Is there something in our body that tells us when we are in love? If we could find a way to prove that true love exists can we tell when two people are really in love? Do we really want to know? If someone that we love dies can we get married again? We will write a custom essay sample on True Love specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now We will write a custom essay sample on True Love specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer We will write a custom essay sample on True Love specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer Can there be more than one person in your life that you have loved, love, or will love? I want to look into why this is different for everyone. I expect to find what makes us believe in something when most of us can say we have never experienced it. How did this belief come about? Is it possible to fall in love no matter the appearance, gender, or race? I know we all have our prejudices but perhaps true love is the bridge over these barriers. Polygamists treat their wives like property but still say they love them. If you truly love someone how should you treat them? I think that scientific research will show that love does exist and that you can fall in love multiple times in a life. Fate is something that can’t really be proven. I also am hoping to find how the idea of a true love came about. I don’t think that an interview will help much because it varies so much from person to person. What I want to accomplish is to focus on three main points for my paper. First, can true love be scientifically proven? I also want to go into how it has proved the existence of love? (I believe they have)Second, why do we believe in true love in the first place? Third, has America lost sight of the idea of true love or are we focusing on it too much? There is a lot more I could go into but these are my main three. To begin, I first need to establish what true love is. While I am trying to figure out if this proposed phenomenon actually exists, for this section I will assume that it does. This basis will allow for proof or disproof. Getting everyone to agree on one definition is impossible, so I hope to highlight a couple. First, I wanted to find an article on the Christian view of how to find true love. Since most of the population in America is made up of Christians, I felt that it was important that this view was included. It begins with the famous verse from Corinthians, â€Å"Love is patient, love is kind†¦Ã¢â‚¬  This is a view that many people hold dear to their hearts. This article is more of a guide for Christians on how to find true love and tells that in order to find true love that we need to do three things. First, the article says to read the bible and find what to look for in love. Next, honesty is needed with ourselves and the one we love. Finally, to be ready to commit for a lifetime and understand what this commitment means. The view of this article is that love lasts forever and that unless you are looking for the right qualities that you won’t ever find it. While this is only one opinion, it is quite standard. The next definition needed comes from the opposite direction, science. This article from CNN states that researchers from Stony Brook University have proved the existence of lasting love. Their research focused on new lovers and couples that have been together for around 20 years. They analyzed the chemical reactions when the person was shown a picture of their loved one. Old research had found that the chemical reaction in new lovers fade within 15 months and is gone after 10 years. Somehow, these scientists managed to find a few couples that defied these statistics. !0 percent of the couples that had been together for twice the amount of time that their love was supposed to fade by had reactions the same as a new couple. This definition of true love is based on time and fact but it is just as real as an immeasurable definition. This next source is called â€Å"7 Myths of Happily Ever After† by Blair Justice. This is an article about how Americans view perfect relationships (incorrectly). Instead of looking at a definition, this looks at common misconceptions. The first is about how all people look for that person to live happily ever after with. It states that we all are searching for that unconditional love, futilely. We shouldn’t have that unconditional love between us and our partner in order to have that â€Å"perfect relationship. † Then, that when there is true love between two people that they should not have to tell the other what they want. Third we search for someone with the same problems that we have and that will make both of our problems disappear. Maybe he/she will even understand and that will be enough. Fourth, don’t go to bed angry. An unhealthy relationship would be if you never slept away from your partner after an argument. As long as you are not running away and can try and put the heat of the argument behind you. Fifth, we never talk. We actually talk a lot but we need to learn how to communicate better. Sixth, he will change after we are married. We need to get rid of the illusion of changing our partner later. This entire article tells pretty much what Americans view as true love. The question that is brought up by all these wrong beliefs is, if we change how we think about love can we find it? What the focus needs to shift to is recognizing this love. When you fall in love you head in full force. You devote all of your attention to that one person and nothing else. The passion and heat takes over. This is not true love, though. True love is the kind that lasts; this heat we all feel in the beginning of a relationship will always fade. If there were a device to prolong this feeling, it would be coveted by all. How do we act when we are truly in love? In this article from Christian Answers gives a list on how to know when you are in love. The first step to having a true relationship is establishing that what you have is exclusive. By telling your partner that you want to be with them and only them shows that you are ready to commit fully. Next you say that this is the best relationship that you have had. It is like starting a new chapter in your life where you can only go forward. Then, once you are past the lets go anywhere stage and the stage where you stand up for yourself, this article says that you can accept the other person’s interests to partake in them sometimes as well. The article says that you must accept the other person’s beliefs enough to not oppose them. You also have to just be able to enjoy the other person’s company enough that doing nothing together is like a break from the rest of the world, even though you are with him/her. Lastly, it lists that you have to show that you are comfortable being yourself in front of them. Overall I believe that this is a good list of how to recognize true love. There are many people loosing the sight of true love and this can be represented by the amount of divorces in the United States. When two people get married, most say that they will be married forever. Some hold on to the view of happily ever after, while others are more realistic about their life after marriage. One thing that we have to accept is the ending of marriage. While many people say that 50% of all marriages in America end in goodbye, this is not entirely correct, this article states. The facts do show that if the current trend continues that we may even surpass this number. We loose sight of the hope for true love for many reasons. The main reason in this short article is childlessness. â€Å"The absence of children leads to loneliness and weariness†¦Ã¢â‚¬  This last article is called â€Å"True Love? Forget it! † This article argues that true love does not exist. The author, Lynn Truss, says that we often use the non-existence of a perfect partner as an excuse to not find love at all. If someone was â€Å"just looking for the right person† they might pass up on several people that might not be perfect, but are perfect for them. The definition of love is given as what you do with what you’ve got. We often have unrealistic views of love and this is because of two things. First, love is deeply placed in human nature and we see love as something we find. Actually, he states, love is something we create, an achievement. So this article is saying that we make up true love to fill a void in our life that everyone has. Love is something we make not something we just bump into. To turn this last topic around I would like to highlight a girl that never gave up on love, even if it hurt. Nancy Rue says in her book, Coping with Dating Violence that abuse happens in many ways. Sometimes the guy doesn’t want to lose the girl and sometimes he has anger issues. What I was interested in was why women tend to stay with these men when they aren’t treating them right. This book states that women often blame themselves for the abuse. What I am interested in is the fact that some stay because, in the beginning, it was perfect and they were so in love. Was this true love that just went wrong or a facade from the beginning? When girls fall in love with this boy they are really falling in love with him, she states. When a girl is being abused by the â€Å"mental illness† that the boy has. During this process I learned a lot, but not as much as I wanted to. Next year I will have to write a ton of papers. While this project was interesting, I don’t see it preparing me for the future. I already know how to research, so hat was one of the easiest parts. The main thing that I learned from this project was MLA format. I have worked with many kinds of formats before so it was good to be able to focus on just this one. What I really liked about what I did was the quality of research although I wish that I had the time to get more. I also make summaries daily for other classes which made it easier to do the summ aries in here. One thing that I really need to work on is my citations. Most of the times they need a little bit of tweaking, in order to be fully correct, there aren’t too many problems. What I learned in both this area and in MLA format will most certainly help me in later projects. During this particular project I liked it simply because it was different. It is not like the typical high school paper. One thing it could have benefited from was a little less structure. We were able to pick out our own topic which was nice but turning in our summaries every due date was a little confining. I believe that more freedom would have also been more responsibility, so I understand the structure somewhat. I began this paper with an idea. Actually, I had many ideas but my main one was my favorite. This idea has become a growing question in my own life. Does true love exist? Some people believe they can answer this question with a yes or no. This is not the answer that I want. I want a reason, explanation, but most of all information. I’m not researching that feeling you get when you see that cute guy a couple rows over in class smiling at you. I am looking at actual, forever love. I was hungry for information and began searching from many different angles. I found scientific evidence and put it right along side the religious. I read stories about terrible abuse and tales of enchanting love. The scientific evidence claimed its existence, if rare. Just by looking at divorce rates in America shows how wrong we can be about love. These are some of my favorite sources. My absolute favorite has to go to the book I read. This story speaks to me in a way that none of the articles could. One of the stories from this book tells of a girl that fought so hard for love, she almost died. The desperation that she feels is what makes this the best in my eyes. After all of this time I think I can finally say that I have an answer that makes sense to me. True love is out there for everyone somewhere. It is just up to you to find it and hold on tight. There will never be a world where everyone will find this connection but the first step is knowing what to look for. At the very least, you should know what to stay away from. This conclusion has helped me with my own life, even if it never helps another person. I wish that I could not change my question but instead write a follow up piece. If I could it would be on the history of love, how it has evolved. That topic intrigues me but the one I wrote this paper on was just right for me.