love , relationships , and "the prophecy of the one"

[confused]

so being a person who has watched,read,even wrote  a lot of romance , and i mean A LOT . i grew up believing in "the one" , as in for everyone of us , there's someone who is their soul mate , like if they connect , they would glow or something
of course as i growing up i slowly realized  it's nothing like that (although i still believe in a perfect match)
but that's not the point of this post
"analyzing" love is the point , do we feel the need for love because we need to love or be loved , or maybe both? or is it different for everyone? for myself i find the need to love someone sometimes exceed the need to be loved , but then i made a rule to "delete" any love i have for someone who doesn't love/like me back (of course it doesn't always work but anyway)

since the longest relationship i ever experienced was like a year and half long , i have a very simple idea about the kind of love people with years long relationships talking about , when you are so used to eachother , even if you see something that is supposed to be disgusting , you love it . but yet i have NEVER EVER seen a happy couple , so where exactly is that love ?

because i got to this point where i want it , but i quit trying to find it . i mean if there's no love then what's the point of a relationship anyway?
have you ever experienced the feeling that you want something , but you don't want it , or you know it doesn't exist?

bonus question : what was your worst crush?
for me , i was 10 , she was a girl in the group i used to hang out/play with ,it was awful lol , almost 2 years crush and never even had the nerve to have conversation , other girls easily picked it up  , even teased me about it , and eventually when she tried to make a move about it i literally ran away

[Hikari]

For me I live life totally selfishly, but with a long term outlook (i.e. actions that are wrong generally have consequences that are worse than the gain). I look at love the same way, When doing positive things for the other person is what I want, even if it causes me hardship, that's when I know I am in love. In short I am in love with my wife because I am made happier when she is happy.

There was no magical moment when it happened, no Hollywood story, and who knows how it will all end, but even if it ended tomorrow, at least I would know that these past 6 years have been worthwhile, as they have made me happy.

I will say this though,in my experience looking for love, is alot like trying to make people like you. It is an action that is doomed to failure, by the sheer virtue of putting yourself in the weaker position. I am not saying that one shouldn't take opportunities, but it seems like trying in the way people do in movies just isn't helpful.

[rejennyrated]

Ok Alison and I were both longterm postop, and both in serious relationships with men.

I got introduced to her via the man who was now a close friend but previously had been my gender psychiatrist. He mentioned her in some contexts and said I should maybe call her and talk. (at the time she was running the self help group in the UK and I think I had some notions about counselling people - an idea which I have since revisited but never actually done.)

Anyway I ring her and we hit it off straight away. Upshot is that some weeks later when I find myself being chased around town by a photographer from the "News of the World" armed with a long lens I decided that Aunty Alison might be a good place to run and hide.

I walk into her house in Plymouth.

Alison -  My God I've found you at last!

I think to myself "well thats a weird greeting" - but what is even more strange is my instinctive response.

Me - And this time I'm not going to be able to escape am I?

Fast forward over 10 years and we were still together - I go to a past life regression to find that in a previous existance I had run out on a male athority figure, either a father or a husband, when I was pregnant with my son, and escaped to cardiff where I lived with my secret lesbian lover... During that episode I relived in my mind a lot of that including the experience of being a pregnant woman, in labor, and giving birth, which I have since checked out with someone who has been there and it turns out to be 100% accurate...

Ok I'm still not sure that if I really believe in all this - but the fact is that twenty two years on we are still together - our relationship did start almost like someone turning on a light switch - it was as if we had already known each other for an age.

So I don't know what I think about any of this, but in my case Alison is undoubtedly the love of my life - "the one" if you want to put it like that. Ironic that she is female too, when in this life I would do anything to be able to run away with a man, but that's real karma for you I guess! Who says Karma has no sense of humor?