Is Love a Choice?

Feel like this goes here.

Is love/loving someone is a choice?

The feeling of loving someone, is it a choice?

Love is a biochemical thing deep down. So no, definitely not a choice. Whether or not we acknowledge it though, that's a choice.

The other side is that although love comes from biochemical things, it's actually what we call our feelings and perceptions that rise from them, not the biochemistry itself. Those feelings and perceptions are subjective, and there is an element of choice in how we define love. Both loving someone and even the feeling of loving someone involves some significant amount of choice.

Ultimately, it is a choice because love is best described as being an involuntary response to our values being represented or reflected in another.

"How can it be a choice if it's involuntary"
Because we choose our values. The relationships in our lives are mere shadows cast by the pillars of the virtues we choose to represent ourselves on this journey of life. When we choose those virtues, we choose with whom we will have relations and ultimately who we will love.

You can feel intense emotions towards someone without having shared values, but that's likely because they appeal to an unresolved or unprocessed trauma from earlier in our life OR because we're drawn in by lust. People I find ethically reprehensible can still have nice even features, a symmetric face, a nice rack and butt, etc.
Yet it is how they carry themselves that makes me want to vomit in my mouth while being around them thus find them incapable of deserving my affection.

Yes and no? That's a tough question.

Personally I believe love is something that isn't instantaneous, but rather a psychological bond with another person.
Connection, Attraction, and Lust are the involuntary, natural things that make up "love at first sight". i believe these are key, at least in my own personal experiences.
True, Unconditional and Eternal love takes years to develop, and is the result of changes in the brain that are associated with social and sexual connection.

As for homosexuality, nobody's business. from my own experience it's nature, but i think when you're predominately attracted to a certain gender you will nurture yourself into loving that specific gender more, at least that's how me and my friends are.

MckinkyMcormic said:

Connection, Attraction, and Lust are the involuntary, natural things that make up "love at first sight". i believe these are key, at least in my own personal experiences.
True, Unconditional and Eternal love takes years to develop, and is the result of changes in the brain that are associated with social and sexual connection.

Click to expand...

With my own experiences as my weapon I'm going to shoot this one down. It doesn't take years to unconditionally love anyone or anything, it can happen almost instantly.. such as the birth of a baby. But that is merely one situation out of many where time is not necessary to develop that kind of love.

True love comes from deep within and it doesn't need earthly limitations such as time to exist first. That being said, no: love is not a choice.

it's not a choice, basically, but there're some people who are incapable of feeling love and other people who love differently than is perhaps The Norm. this is all probably pretty obvious. also, the thing someone said up there about "being in love isn't a choice but acknowledging / doing something about it is." Yea.

Love is... Its so much simpler and infinitely more complex than anyone could ever understand. Love is a bond, two people make. There is no such thing as love at first sight, you may both feel attraction and that can be a very good thing! Yet true love doesn't really happen until you understand a person, their choices, their feelings, their past. Love is a combination of Physical and Mental.

And yes, this can be reached by anyone with anyone, regardless of race, religion, heck i'd go as far as to say species if we take a page from Doctor who and take Vastra and Jenny for example... I believe anyone can love anyone else, on the deepest possible level, and as long as both feel the same way, that is true love.

Love is a choice, and to love I say
NO!
Mudkip shall exist alone!

I honestly have no experience with love in the sense of being romantically involved, but in the sense of platonic and familial love, it's a weird combination of choice and obligation. With someone like me, I consider myself to be eccentric and as such not everyone will gravitate to me. While I choose to associate with those I call my friends, I feel that as their friend I am obliged to uphold a friendship to a reasonable degree in order to have an established, tight knit group of friends that have my back.

With my experiences I have to say that love is not voluntary. There have been many a time when I was explicitly against falling for someone...Only to find that somehow that love found it's way around whatever block I placed to inhibit it. And ohhh man how restrained love can be all the more strong for it. It finds a way.

When you meet someone you know for sure is the right kind of person, you can't help but fall in love. It's more than just chemical, it's spiritual and emotional too! It resounds as a clear tone in your heart and soon your mind falls right in tune to the music. The choice lies not in falling in love. One cannot prevent that, if it is to happen. One can only try to manage one's behavior and reaction to that love. Personally I have found that denying a love tends to be far more damaging than admitting it. It drives one to do many foolish things either way; better to let it run it's course and cultivate it so it grows into the proper form of love for that person. Friendship is love too you know~ :3

Probably echoing other people, but naaaaah, it's not. You can't really choose who you love, and you can't make someone love you. I think that people either click in a romantic way eventually, or they don't. I've tried to fall for people that I knew had feelings for me, never works. You just feel forced and it's not natural. I've also tried to get someone to fall for me when I was younger, but I tried too hard and just ended up driving them away.

Love is a choice in the matter of who you love, however the choice is heavily affected on your upbringing. Most of the time the upbringing will determine the outcome of your sexuality. Therefore you have probably have no choice regarding which sex you are attracted to.

I don't think love is a choice. But I don't think anything is a choice, I think everything we do and everything we say and feel is determined by a number of different factors, so this is an obvious one. If anyone wants to discuss this with me, go ahead. Or maybe I should just make a thread about free will, I'll see.

I'm on the side that believe love can also be a choice, when love is possible (that is, when the person is likeable). If the other person has some things it does you find likeable and many other small things, I feel you can start to grow feelings for it when both sides goes deeper into a relationship. I have seen this happening sometimes.
Although it's hard to say it's a choice, because if so, life would be so easier. It's complicated. But I do believe you can love someone by a choice.

I wish. You can probably choose to grow to love somebody, but you can't always choose not to. Sometimes your body (and mind) are too easily captured by a person with whom you have absolutely zero chance at romance with. Then it's just all about trying to make the best of things and hope that feelings go away eventually. Telling yourself that it's all just chemicals, after all. Just chemicals.

When it comes to love, you don't use your head. The feeling of love isn't a choice, but the feeling alone can't be called love by itself. It has to be constructed, which is a choice.

I personally believe that love has to be mutual, as in, you cant love someone if they dont love you back, so yeah, thats a choice. But I do think you dont have a choice for who you like, its just that they have the choice of acknowledging it and making it love, or saying no.

Loving someone isn't a choice. You can't just walk down the street one day and decide that the next stranger you see will be the person you love for the rest of your life. It doesn't work like that. Nor can you suddenly decide to not love someone after spending so much time with them and leaving your heart open them either. You can chose who you spend time with and generally the people you surround yourself with, but love grows on it's own and without your own consent.

I also find that saying love is a choice offensive because that logic justifies conversion therapy, which has been proven not to work.