Topic: Fear of love

I am the same. Trying to avoid relationships as much as possible because I hurt people and they suffer. Looks like it is not my fault.

I often think about the feeling of love that I believe to remember correctly. When thinking about it and all the many variables involved I never seem to finish or find a result. Love, for me, has become a conscious effort/thought to do right by those that are in my life. I must say though that my personal relationships, outside of work, have dwindled to what is now just a hand full of people. I've determined through self examination, via near continuous thinking/analysing of mostly myself, that ultimately I ruin/destroy personal relationships. I do not intend to do this. Over time it happens and usually because of a lack of some mystical connection. I am not afraid to discover love because I dream of it frequently. My problem is, for some reason, I cannot discern emotional connections with people and any sensation of an emotion is fleeting/quickly dissolved.. I can pretend but ultimately pretending pans out to someone getting hurt or so fed up with me they walk. With that said, I am very aware of my "self" because for years I have tried to figure out my lack of ability to interpret a feeling, or very often, the complete lack of a feeling I know others have in specific situations. I am not antisocial but I have extreme difficulty socializing with others in an emotional or even generalized way. I fake every single day of my life and that has become and is my reality. If I didn't I wouldn't be able to effectively communicate with co-workers or those in my life outside of work. I do not find much enjoyment talking with people. My ideal setting for any semblance of enjoyment comes in complete solidarity doing some activity or pondering deep thoughts. So I suppose that my answer is that I do not fear love. What I fear is being forgotten and someday realising that I can feel love.

I think this is a normal thing. I feel the same way. I don't want to get hurt and i don't think that it would be fair for anyone i tried to date because i don't feel like i can make a real connection. I understand what it should look like, but i don't think i can do that

Does love even exist? I am beginning to think not since every time I think I am in love, it's a one way street. All of my serious relationships ended in failure, usually with the one I "loved" leaving it without any explanation. I can't tell you how small and insignificant I have felt over the years. Basically, I've given up on trying to find someone who will love me in the same way I love. Therefore, I doubt that true love does not exist.

Because I got tired of "Faking it." I faked everything. I have no clue how one is supposed to "feel" when they are "in love." For me, it's.... "oh, a guy likes me. Therefore, I'm 'supposed' to act like thus and so...." so I do, and then I get tired of "faking it" and I leave them.

good question.

i think tv and books only show the really intense, romantic love - or what i like to think of as infatuation.

real love to me is just caring about people, wanting them to be ok and... all that stuff. i gave up on ever feeling an intense feeling of love. it's good enough knowing that i at least care, although i sure as hell know that isn't always good enough for other people...

I suppose I do fear love if you means someone loving me, as I simply do not think I would ever be able to return that love. I do not however feel afraid of falling in love, in fact I would welcome somebody that had the ability to make me feel anything. Even if this person ultimately left me and I felt pain, I would welcome that as well as I simply would like to know what it is like to feel anything.

I'm not alexithymic myself, but I dated one and we had discussions about love. She didn't have a precise definition, just described it as falling off a cliff. But my explanation to her was that romantic love was no different from familial love or love of friends... it's wanting the best for someone (in most cases their happiness, but you see the problem now). The thing that makes romantic love feel different is our biology (hormones, brain chemistry) since we have an evolutionary need to reproduce even if we don't want to.

uhh.. sure we can define love in several ways, depending on what area or aspect we are looking at. I agree the main definition needs to include more than just infatuation.

slusshhhhy why did you gave up on the intense emotional aspect of it though?

jdr, your ex almost sounds like being afraid of that emotional aspect. just this falling off a cliff thing is weird to me at least. I don't want to/can't speculate though about why she would describe it that way...

for me it's more like just feeling a bit of loss of control and lately I have been thinking about how to avoid that issue and how to feel safe enough in this context. so I can't say I'm afraid of love, since I've figured out a lot about it lately.

but yes, originally this was definitely a big part to relationships for me - that fear.

How I wish I knew wat love was or how t felt like. I dont even have feelings for my own mum wich kinda drives me nuts. when my frends talk about how they love their mum's and they ask me, I just look at them and tell them that I also love my mum. actualy most emmotional stuff I do is just so that I can b seen as an equal by society

It's funny because as I read this all I could think was maybe I never felt love at all. I don't remember loving someone so much that I actually knew it was love. But maybe it was love....and I couldn't tell the difference. I always say I love you back, because that's what I'm supposed to do. I fear I'll never know what real love feels like. In fact when I break up with someone, I never think anything about it. no tears...no joy...no nothing. Perhaps though I was never in love to begin with. lol

Caring is just another word for placing importance on things. If something is important to you (eg. your car) you want it to be available to you and working well. There are degrees of caring, like degrees of love, because some things and people may be more important to you than others. But if the people around you are all equally unimportant to you, and less important than eg. car, then you're disconnected. But remembering that you are still important to some of them, I think is good.

I composed a short bad poem, after pondering my love for my ex :)...

If the opposite of love is indifference,

then could there be a black hole at the limits of indifference

which sucks in and subsumes any love that crosses the event horizon?

If so, they should put up a warning sign.

I know that mothers supposedly love their children, although how this manifests itself I don't know. From what I can glean from books, movies and the internet love between adults would appear to be like friendship but with the addition of a sexual element. As I don't have a clue what friendship is (and nobody has ever managed to explain it to me in a way that I can understand) then friendship with sex has no meaning either. I'm not going to lose sleep over it, I've no interest in actually finding out what love or friendship are, it was simply idle curiosity when I was younger, now I couldn't care less.

After learning about this Alexithymia thing, I am thinking my own Mom is a closet Alexi. I think she has faked it her whole life because I learned about "Faking it" from watching her. That is what I thought people did! And a few years ago, I got her to reveal that her own mom "told her how to feel." That is when a light bulb went off in my head. Mom faked it. And I learned how to fake it from watching her. Trouble is, she has faked it so long she doesn't know she is faking it. I always knew, on a subconscious level, that I was faking it. Because I put the equivalent of "VCR tapes" in my head. Those "VCR tapes" were...... "If you are in this situation, act thus and so. In another situation, you do and say this scenario."

Romantic relationships were the worst! One of my ex's knew I was faking it and called me "Robot brain." But I guess I faked it good enough that he kept me around, I eventually left him.

1. With claiming love for someone I feel responsible for that person’s welfare. It is giving and sacrificing.
2. I have seen friends lose sense of reason when they’ve fallen in love (one tried to commit suicide—extreme example).
3. I also have high caution against listening to the phrase ‘I love you’ from other than people who have proven that through actions (example: parents, siblings).

1. With claiming love for someone I feel responsible for that person’s welfare. It is giving and sacrificing.
2. I have seen friends lose sense of reason when they’ve fallen in love (one tried to commit suicide—extreme example).
3. I also have high caution against listening to the phrase ‘I love you’ from other than people who have proven that through actions (example: parents, siblings).

Thoughts, is love an emotion? If it is an emotion, then emotions are bad.

I said that I love you and tried to prove it though actions, like hugging and kissing you.

If you have this hilarious and paranoid phobia of love, then you will be responsible for the distress you cause to people.

There is a sickness in your heart ! You are concocting lies !
I am celibate and have ALWAYS been celibate!
NEVER any hug or kiss outside immediate family (father, mother, sisters/brother)!
I NEVER met, talked or seen you! We NEVER hugged or kissed!
I NEVER LOVE YOU! I NEVER LUST YOU! I NEVER CLAIM LOVE OR LUST FOR YOU!
Regarding your confusion, talk to your therapist not to me!

1. With claiming love for someone I feel responsible for that person’s welfare. It is giving and sacrificing (I have never claimed love for people outside family.). I do community service, volunteer work (etc) but that is something different than 'love'.
2. I have seen friends lose sense of reason when they’ve fallen in love (one tried to commit suicide—extreme example). Therefore, I actively try to avoid bias in judgment due to my love for family members.
3. I also have high caution (active resistance) against listening to the phrase ‘I love you’ from other than family (example: parents, siblings).

So to answer thread question: Yes, fear of love might exist. The reason for the fear appears to be individual.

1. Then it is more than simple. You should obtain some kind of close relationship with the person having the love phobia. For example, she could be my mother in a sense by adopting me if she did wish to. That would be my best, but I could play any other role in order for her to hug me and for me to obtain the power from her kiss. I could even sign a fucking paper in order for her to be comfortable, carefree and happy. In any case, she would overcome her phobia.

2. You should not fall in love, but stand up in love. First of all, you should distinguish desire from love. Desire is hollow and only about you, love is compact and about both of you. For example, the fact that a friend of a maniac died "due to love" does not mean I won't experiment with my grounded estimation in case she hugs me. This is against the strong likelihood principle, since the probability of success of people around you is very high. So if the probability of the failure in your case is very high, you can say that the trials of people to get a success is close to one unit. If you combine your likelihood of succeeding with your people's succeeding, there is a strong likelihood of your succeeding, obviously greater than your individual likelihood.
Beside the opposite rationale and paranoid fears cause distress and lack of welfare.

3. Then you should sense it with your other senses. If you are unable to get it, you should obtain another sense receiving commands. For example, if she does not sense I love her with her magical eyes or with her cute ears, she should let me touch her majestic neck or her masterly face. But all is in vain if she does not even wish to listen to me.

Three hours and two minutes since you posted this meaningless garbage.

At 13:22 you wrote.... "So, thank you for your interest in my coping with my issue, but go abuse yourself. I am done with the "emotional" search through this stupid forum. "

You're not only annoying but you're deluding yourself too. Go away, this is an alexithymia forum it is not a lonely hearts club for the obsessive and mentally ill.