True Love

Just made my brother angry.. Ooops.. Ate "his" dinner which i found in the fridge.. I mean come on, there was no name, nothing, finders, keepers man.. This is an impt lesson to you folks out there. Either put your name when you wanna claim the food or dun put your name and risk losing it, it's simple!

Last project to settle this semester! Deadline on mon and I'm 1/3 done already.. Cant wait for it to finish, and then a different stress will come, exams.. Zzzz.. Just get it over and done with already..

Anyway, I downloaded this fabulous Iphone App called "How Stuff Works". Interesting stuffs like how Vampires work or good to know stuff like how to survive a sinking ship or to the topic I'm gonna mention, "Everlasting Love: How do you know if it's for real?"

It starts off by giving a scenario - Your heart races everytime he calls and your pamls sweat whenever he's near. You think he may be "the ONE". But how do you know if this is the real thing?

It goes on to further explain that Love has 3 stages. Infatuation stage, Bonding Stage and the Familiar Stage.

Infatuation stage is when you cant wait to be with the other person, also know as the romantic stage of love. But Dr Neder warns that this is the stage when people thinks it's "the real thing." But this stage lasts only a short time. Happened to me alot, hahaha..

2nd stage - Bonding. You get to know the other person and you start planning aspects of your life around them. If you continue through this stage you eventually enter the 3rd stage.

Familiar stage. You've established a pattern that involves the other person. You know foundationally how the other person feels about almost everything and interestingly, you also become refocused on your own life, direction and goals. Dr Neder says, not I say one, that this is where most professionals believe "real love" starts.

Dr Neder defines true love as caring about the health, well-being and happiness of another person to a greater degree than your own health, well-being and happiness.

Conversely, Dr Northrup says if someones says to you: " If you love me, you would..", that is not love, it's about control. True love is easily recognised as unconditional support.

Kathlyn and Gay Hendricks says that true love occurs when you shift from unconscious commitment to conscious commitment. When you hear people say: "Relationships are really hard work," that is an expression of unconscious commitment. Conscious commitment means that you reveal your true self to your partner and support your partner through thick and thin.

Laurie Moore, has a different opinion though. She says all love comes from an open heart and that when you're together, it's open and safe at the same time, but she believes that this doesnt mean the person you love is necessarily your life partner.

Interesting point of views from all these people...

So finally, to the gist of this message. The experts give us nine ways to tell if your love is real.

1. You feel good

A good r/s makes you feel good about yourself.

2. You look forward to spending time with your partner

You dont need to be with other people to go to events to avoid being alone together. You enjoy spending quality time together even when it's quiet.

3.You respect your partner

You hear yourself bragging about your partner. If you find that you're always talking about yourself, you're not focused on your partner or the r/s

4.You're interested in what your partner thinks

You ask your partner's opinion about issues that are important to you. It's OKAY if he/she disagrees.

5.You accept your partner's quirks

If your partner's quirks are endearing or tolerable, you're in good shape. If they really bother you, you should look more closely at the relationship.

6.You're able to work through your problems

People in healthy r/s see disagreements as a chance to learn more about their partner. However if you're creating the problems, or if you think every fight is the "big one" leading to a breakup, you should probably rethink your r/s.

7.You feel safe

You're not afraid of losing your partner.

8.You cant explain why you're together

Ask yourself if you're together because you truly want to be. If the answer is yes, then you'll probably stay together. If it's no, you're bound to have problems.

9. You dont compare your partner to others

There will always be someone more beautiful or smarter or more athletic than your partner, but you dont care because you only want to be with him/her.

But a disclaimer - True love has different meanings for different people.

So there you go. I guess this stems from my curiosity of how do I recognise if she's the one. I tried asking my cg member who was engaged not too long ago, and to my horror, she told me actually they quarrel alot and she is not certain herself if he's the one.. ZZZZzzzz.. To think she accepted the engagement.. I was quite lost for words.. But really, it puzzles me, how to recognise "the ONE"..

Even after reading this, I can safely say, you wun know "the ONE" till you JUST TRY! Since it suggest that real love only comes at the 3rd stage and not the 1st, so obviously you need to know the person till the 3rd stage before you know it's true love. So morale of the story, JUST TRY!

I'm falling in love with this song, true love.. We at stage 3 liao.. haha.. Probably not very apt song title for this post, but that's the irony! I love irony!