Here's another question

[cosmolinguist]

Is the difference between platonic love and romantic love a matter of kind or just of degree?

Comments

[cosmolinguist]

Either is fine with me. :-)

[kwakhed.livejournal.com]

i see someone (or ones) already hit most of the points i wanted to hit... that romantic love is more than platonic love + hormones... and even if that is subjective, what else is there? does one live in one's own mind, or someone else's? there's very little room for objectivity with emotions that are this personal...

i think there's a matter of thinking of the mind as a cpu, and after that, who is getting the most cycles... generally, someone i am romantically involved with -- either actively or pondering involvement -- gets far more of my brain cpu time than someone i don't consider in such a way... this doesn't mean i shut out platonic friends, or set them to a lower nice level -- it's just brain patterns assuming a shape of minimum energy, and there just happens to be a BIG influx of energy associated with one person... from that analogy, it's why polyamory doesn't work for me -- i get very confused if there's more than one strong energy source bending the fabric of my mind... i tend to act badly in such situations...

[cosmolinguist]

I love your analogy about the CPU cycles--I even repeated it already (though, sadly, I wans't thinking and mentioned it to someone who doesn't know what a CPU is; I'll have to try harder next time). Yet again, technology makes a good metaphor for an otherwise-confusing part of my life! :-)