Why Is Love A Waste Of Time?: Love! What defines loves? Is it the sense of attraction you feel when you see a certain someone which causes your body to release high amounts of dopamine? Or is it the tenderness you feel for someone due to having developed a bond or a connection over time?
Love takes on many shapes and forms; it isn’t chained to a certain definition or meaning. When we talk about “Love being a waste of time” we associate it with the ideology of finding that perfect someone who understands you, cares for you, and who will always be by your side no matter what.
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Don’t get love confused with infatuation, see the difference between love and attachment.
Table of Content
Does Love Really Exist?
How long does it take to fall in love? When we start “falling” in love with someone, our entire body contradicts itself. We start to feel this restlessness in our body, elevated brain activity levels due to being anxious and thrilled at the same time.
You feel yourself dreaming about what may come; all the while panicking over the fear of things not working out your way. Being in love is an exciting and a very special moment in a person’s life. It is a joyous start to a journey that has no proper pathways.
Falling in love is the uncomplicated part of a much bigger story, maintaining that same love and affection is laborious. When you start a relationship with someone you love, you have to understand the fact that another human being is going to be a part of your life.
These people have lived most of their lives without you and have their own experiences, dreams, and ambitions. Most relationships are off to a good start, mostly due to the complete disregard of the other person’s flaws.
Why Do We Stop Loving Someone?
When the dust settles, it’s harder to maintain the same level of ignorance against those flaws and slowly those little things start to bother you one by one.
It is in human nature to alter things to please themselves; we have changed our entire way of living throughout centuries therefore, it is not hard to recognize certain parts of our lover’s that we may want to change.
This marks the first descend towards falling out of love. Some may see it as enhancing your significant other and making them a better person, but it is mostly considered not to be able to accept a person regardless of their flaws. Not all relationships go through this, a minor percentage do work it out.
Not always do we stop loving someone. Sometimes, we fall in love with people who don’t deserve our love and attention. These people don’t treat us the way we need to be treated but nonetheless, we still have a strong infatuation for them.
It’s almost to the point where this person may do whatever he or she may please, but we love them unconditionally. This type of toxic behavior has ruined the lives of many young ambitious people who gave up their dreams and aspiration for others; who at the end of the day, leave them to find someone better.
Toxic Relationships Taking A Toll On Us
It is noteworthy that a large number of people spend their entire lives in toxic relationships without ever figuring it out. Toxic relationships cause mental health problems to a substantial number of people.
These relationships are filled with resentment, jealousy, and dishonesty as a result of self-centered, egotistical, control obsessed individuals who cannot cope with their own flaws and insecurities.
Such relationships destroy people’s lives as they are constantly seeking validation from their partners and spend their entire time pleasing them.
The constant need for approval triggers the individual to misinterpret a single act of kinds as love and the partners use the kindness to maintain a higher ground and keep control over them. Not all relationships are as such, but numerous do exist.
It Is Expecting Too Much Out Of Love To Be “Everything”?
Being in love means sacrificing essential parts of your life to appease the needs of others, it is more about give than it is about receiving.
Making such important life decisions for the sake of others leaves people living out the rest of their lives vicariously; hoping that they could’ve amassed to something. This causes people to resent their partners and blame them for their own failures.
Love prompts us to do such things on a whim and when you actually come to terms with the choice you’ve made, you question your own credibility as a functioning human being. Love also welcomes you to a whole new world of additional problems, as your partner’s ongoing issues and personal difficulties are now a part of your daily life.
This can burden an individual, especially if they are going through something on their own. The opportunity cost of you avoiding your own problems to help your partner might weigh in later in life.
Why Does Love Start Being A Waste Of Time?
Forget about falling or being in love, love, in general, is a waste of time. Humans have progressed so much throughout history, then why is it that we succumb to fulfilling such an animalistic desire?
We spend a gargantuan amount of our lives finding love. Finding that one special person. Remarkably, only a handful of people really do find such people; the rest of us spend their life in trial and error.
If we devoted our time concentrating on issues that hold significance in life, we can achieve a great deal. Going through these experiences while finding love is said to develop character and maturity, but what good is that maturity when you’ve spent half of your life earning it.
Love Has Always Been An Abstract
Love is an abstract. In the past, poets and philosophers loved to intrigue and create excitement in the hearts of their audience. There was a certain peculiarity about how they described the love that sparked fire into the consciousness of an individual.
It has this array of anonymity that drew more and more people towards it; until reality kicked in. In actuality, love is nothing but a carnal desire that burns out as time passes.
In Literature
Even in literature, love doesn’t live on forever. Take a quick glance at the work of Shakespeare and you’d understand how truly destructive love is.
Macbeth is a great example of how love can be exploitive. Lady Macbeth constantly manipulates and gaslights Macbeth; goading him into committing regicide.
This is an excellent example of how an individual can commit great atrocities in the name of love. Not saying that toxic relationships lead to such similar outcomes, but they do tend to be manipulative.
Modern Influences
The modern societal perspectives of love differ from the past. In this day and age, Love is a sugar-coated ideology force-fed to us by the media we consume. Tormenting us into thinking, it is uncanny for an individual to spend their life alone.
People who are committed towards their aspirations and ambitions and do not wish to seek love are disregarded as workaholics; whereas, these are hardworking and determined people who do not seek comfort from being in someone’s arms but instead find pleasure in chasing their pursuit.
Importance Of Self-Love
Certain people find love to be nothing more than acceptance and validation; just self-satisfaction by being applauded for achieving mediocrity. To some acceptance by others is inconsequential, as they tend to seek their own approval rather than others.
Even Aristotle believed that self-love is a prerequisite to loving others. That may sound a tad bit selfish, but isn’t loving yourself and appreciating who you are more important than seeking approval of arbitrary people.
Nowadays, life is very fast-paced. The chase for success now starts at a very young age; everything is predetermined. What to do, what to eat, even what to wear.
In this struggle for dominance, going astray and falling in love can be detrimental for a young person; indefinitely altering their path and perception about life. Being heartbroken at a young age can seed insecurities and commitment issues which could lead them to have unhealthier relationships in the future.
Love And The Societal Norms
In 2020, finding love is made even easier through the internet. The Internet already forces us to interact with strangers, so searching for love online doesn’t seem so farfetched.
With apps such as Tinder and Bumble, you can swipe right to choose a partner and swipe left to move on to the next profile; making love purely physical to the point where going from one partner to the next is considered a societal norm.
We as a society have enforced ourselves to fall for such silly gimmicks to achieve a partner. These apps tend to feed more into the carnal desires rather than finding “true love”.
Arranged And Love Marriages
Staying on the subject of modern perspectives, it is widely believed that for a successful marriage one should choose their own partners; statistics say otherwise. According to a study by Statistic Brain, 53.25 percent of marriages are arranged worldwide.
In Asia, the majority of marriages are arranged. They are presumed to be more compatible as the couple has more in common due to their ethnicity, culture, religion, etc. Arranged marriages only have a 6 percent divorce rate, as opposed to the United States 40 to 50 percent of marriages end in divorce.
It can be acclimated to the cultural differences, but the prime cause for these debacles are the overwhelming expectations spouses have for each other. They anticipate more than what’s reasonable and when their expectations aren’t met, they depart. Another cause for concern is the individual’s inability to fully give up their personal freedom.
In some parts of the world, marriage is treated similarly to a business transaction. Zero involvement of love; making marriage the checkmark for reaching a certain stage in life where one should start a family.
After living together for a long time, arranged marriage spouses do develop feelings for one another over time, making love an acquired part of life rather than pursued. In Japan, a majority of people aren’t in relationships, 46.2 percent of single people in Japan think of love as bothersome. This has had a large impact on Japan’s birth rate.
Is Life Lonely Without Love?
Time after time, one argument is always presented when discussing such a topic; loneliness. People argue that love drives away loneliness and having a partner transcribes to gaining compassion. People who don’t share an affinity for love are not lonely.
People who chose their careers over finding a relationship aren’t lonely. One can be in a loving relationship and still feel lonely and left out. The feeling of abandonment has no relation to being single. As I said earlier, love is abstract; you can be loved by many. By definition, you don’t have to be in a relationship to be loved.
Love is only a waste of time when we search for a special someone or that one magical person we believe will change everything. In pursuit of that love, we forget about the ones around us. The love we have accumulated over the years, our parents, our siblings, and our friends.
Some Commonly Asked Questions:
Are Relationships A Waste Of Time?
Relationships are always fruitful, no matter how toxic. Yes, they can suck out all the good in you and dry you of your positive energies, but you always end up learning and growing. A relationship always leaves us with a higher sense of introspection, we do that by finding out what hurt us the most and not doing that ourselves. A relationship provides a perfect reflection and highlights the areas where there is still room for growth.
Why Do Most Relationships Fail?
When we love someone, it is our dying hope for them to be one of our lives. But in most cases that love breeds irritation and hatred along the way. Relationships mainly fail because of trust issues and lack of reliability. Infidelity, emotional and sexual affairs, and jealousy breaks trust and make it hard for a couple to stay together.
Lack of financial support for the partner and inability to see the other’s goals in life also breaks more relationships than you know. And some partners just lack the emotional support one needs out of a relationship, which makes no point in keeping it up.
Can Love Be Wasted?
Love never goes to waste. Once you realize how much love is about giving than getting in return, there seems to be no way for it to have been wasted. It gets frustrating when you are not getting the same outcome from the love that you are putting in, but it never loses its relevancy.
Also, love never fades or loses its intensity. No matter how much time elapses and how much you find yourself to be changed, you always love what you loved before.
Why Do We Fall In Love?
There are many emotional, physical, and psychological reasons for a person to fall in love. Needing emotional support in life and having someone to rely upon is what every one of us subconsciously needs. Our bodies NEED to have sex and that is just the way it functions, which makes the longing for a partner an even stronger urge.
Psychologically, the brain activity that happens when we are around someone we love can be compared to that of the high of cocaine. The rush of serotonin and dopamine always leaves you wanting more.
How Do You Know When Someone Loves You?
Usually, a person would come up straight and express their feelings but if they don’t, looking for the subtle signs helps you figure out whether or not someone loves you. The most obvious thing to look for eye contact, they will always end up looking for you in a moment of laughter or when a question has been asked. They will also be making time for you and available at any call, you will very rarely get to hear the excuse of them being busy.
Conclusion
We waste a tremendous amount of time chasing after fairy tales that we forget about what is in front of us, these people who have supported us throughout everything and have been by our side through thick and thin. Love is the admiration you feel for someone, it’s not what we have been spoon-fed since birth.
We approximately spend half of our lives sleeping and the other half is spent aimlessly procrastinating and creating castles in the air. In between chasing love, having a job, and giving others time; our entire life passes right before our eyes and all we can do is wonder where did the time go.
Falling in love is not a bad thing, but aimlessly searching for love in hopes of not being alone is utter stupidity. Not everyone fails at finding love, having a one out of million chance isn’t worth chasing for. Writing about love being a majestic treat of nature is easy, but in reality, it is nothing more than a fable.
