And now...let the discussion begin! As a starting topic, how about this:

"Is it better to have loved and lost, then to have never loved at all" ?

I personally would rather have loved and lost...yes, you will hurt, but you will gain life experience, a better understanding of yourself, and how you relate to other people. However I've recently talked to some people who would rather avoid relationships altogether because you'll just end up getting hurt (they preferred just casual "no strings attached" type arrangements, not an actual defined relationship). What's your take on it?

I disagree with the statement It's better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all. At least, when it comes to romantic love. And what I mean by that is this: If there was some hypothetical situation where I knew the future ahead of time, where I knew I would lose someone and never get to be with them, and then was given the choice of whether or not to fall in love with them, I would choose not to. I would see no reason in falling deeply in love with someone and then being hurt, and going through the rest of my life missing them and being scarred by it for no reason. To me, if I knew ahead of time that my romantic relationships would turn into tragedy, I think it would be much more profitable and sensible to devote my heart and time to loving people as brothers and sisters, worshiping God as a single woman, and devote my life to serving God in a way that perhaps married people could not.

However, I don't know ahead of time. And it's certainly not something I'm going to assume will happen to me. I believe it is God's will for me to marry someday, and so I trust that God will lead me to the right person. I'm certainly not going to refuse the man God has for me just because I'm afraid of getting hurt.

~Riella

My take on this quote is that it is up to each person whether they benefit from past relationships or not. It depends on the relationship and how much analysis and self-awareness one exhibits after the relationship ends.

For example if someone is in a relationship that ends badly and they see themselves as the victim and label the ex as "bad" without any further analysis then they will probably not grow from it. But, there is potential to grow from a past relationship if someone takes stock of things that they themselves did wrong and at situations where maybe their ex was in the right as well as where the ex was in the wrong.

I have seen people become cynical from too many failed relationships. So I think there is a balance of being careful about who you date (have some standards) but make sure the standards are not too stringent or shallow.

For example, a reasonable standard, "A man I date must be also be a Christian" Whereas a stringent or shallow standard, "A man must be 6 ft tall for me to date him."

Ah, the thread has returned!

What is meant by '1. Posts must be "academically" oriented' in the context of the romantic relationships topic?

Thanks, Val!

Warrior, academically-oriented basically means that we do not want (and will not allow) any specific references to what someone has personally done in the sexual arena.

Does that help?

EDIT: If anyone has further questions concerning the guidelines, we would prefer to answer via PM, so please don't hesitate to write any of the Spare Oom moderators. Thanks for your consideration on this matter.

Okay, cheers, Jo. I didn't know that was an issue with the previous iteration of the thread.

Ooh, this topic rears its ugly-duckling-to-beautiful-swan head again.

As for the topic at hand: First, I'd like to make a distinction between "hurt" and "harm".

"Hurt" is the pain we might experience if someone we like ultimately does not return our feelings. It can be recovered from fairly easily so long as we go through the proper grief process. And, in the end, we will likely be better off for going through it, either from things learned or just from being able to experience grief in this way (which I think in many ways is good in and of itself).

"Harm", though, comes when our souls take damage from the loss of a relationship. This usually comes from betrayal (cheating, leading someone on and then leaving them, etc.) or disrespect (abuse, being put down as "unlovable"), or from trying to be in relationship with split parts of yourself (this is why premarital sex can really cause a break-up to be more painful: you split off that part of yourself from the rest of love and feel you've lost that part afterwards; this can also happen if one gets too emotionally involved in a relationship so that it imbalances the other parts of the relationship). Harm is much harder to recover from, since the soul needs to be rebuilt.

Now, one can learn from exiting a harmful relationship and healing afterwards. In particular, if you find yourself in multiple harmful relationships, then chances are, something is wrong with yourself and you need to look at the reasons why you keep getting drawn into such bad relationships. Unfortunately, some people do not learn, and so they get disillusioned by relationships.

On that note, avoiding dating to avoid hurt is just silly. Hurt is a part of human relationships in general, and C.S. Lewis says if we want to avoid hurt, we have to shut off our hearts completely.

That said, there has been movements to avoid harm by not dating (such movements being inspired by the infamous book I Kissed Dating Goodbye by Josh Harris, whose book titled the very first Twue Wuv thread). Looking back at such a movement, though, I'm not sure the answer is to avoid dating entirely or to try to moderate the process through an overly rigorous "courtship" model. At the very least, subscribing to any given model will not, in and of itself, resolve any underlying character issues that can cause one to end up in a string of harmful relationships--or worse, end up married in one.

However I've recently talked to some people who would rather avoid relationships altogether because you'll just end up getting hurt (they preferred just casual "no strings attached" type arrangements, not an actual defined relationship).

I do think there is a time and a place for more casual relationships (so long as they are truly casual and aren't places to act out sexually), especially if you're just meeting people and learning more about yourself and others, or if you're building a friendship with someone of the opposite sex. (Such relationships, if I dare say so myself, need not be exclusive, as long as both parties are clear that they are not yet exclusive partners.)

The thing is, when it comes to the phrase "It's better to have loved and lost, then to have never loved at all", it depends a good deal on what the person saying it is actually trying to say by quoting it.

After all, are they saying that, if they knew ahead of time a relationship would fail that they should go for it anyway? In that case, it sounds like a pretty foolish, pointless thing to do.

Are they saying that, if you've already been hurt, it's best to be positive and glad you had the experience to learn something from a trial? Well that's well enough, I guess; but isn't that the case with all trials? Why "love" specifically? Why is one specific trial somehow more valuable than the others?

Or are they just saying that romance is such a wonderful thing, that everyone should experience it whether it leads to tragedy or not? This seems to be the most common usage of the phrase I've seen, and it sounds a bit like idolatry. As if romance is more holy than any other human experience.

~Riella

"Is it better to have loved and lost, then to have never loved at all".

While the above quote typically refers to romantic love, it can, without much change, also refer to family and friendships. If you love and lose loved ones (whether they pass away, move far from home or there's a big rift in the relationship) then it's better to have loved and lost because feeling, being, enjoying, experiencing - all of these are part of what makes us human. We were created to love each other and engage in community. When you don't see your friends or family for a long time it hurts like crazy but you know (and they know) you love them. I think a similar principle applies. If you haven't loved, than you don't know what it is to feel, to be human. It's a difficult choice. Loving some people is easy, loving others, not so much. Loving people requires extraordinary vulnerability and trust. That opens you for a world of hurt if all goes wrong but it also enables a world of hope and sacrifice, joyous times and incredible shared moments. You have to take it on faith that loving people is worth risking all that heartache. That said, in this life you won't avoid all heartache, so be discerning but stop looking for the 'perfect' relationship.

I'm talking about this from a family and friendship perspective because I have no experience with romantic relationships.

Ithilwen -

I think what the quote means is "don't let fear of hurt keep you from loving someone".

Ultimately, we're going to lose everything we care about on this earth - possessions, people, memories, etc. Just about everyone is going to lose someone they care about in their lifetime, most likely more than one someone. And as human beings, our first response to hurt is to do everything we can to keep from being hurt like that again; which would mean not loving again.

If we knew for certain a relationship would not work out - a Christian/non-Christian, for example - it would be foolish to pursue it, yes. And i'm not saying we shouldn't use common sense before beginning a relationship.

But i think the quote is more of a warning, so to speak, against closing off the possibility of love because of the risk of hurt, rather than an imperative to love because it's so awesome it's worth any risk.

I think the quote is about love, too, because love is something of an optional thing in life; you can't completely protect yourself from serious illness or a lost job, but you can protect yourself from love. Not to mention love is often a part of what makes other trials painful.

Ithilwen -

I think what the quote means is "don't let fear of hurt keep you from loving someone".

That is essentially what I was going to post. Great minds think alike, eh?

Fear of hurt is often a strong motivation to not experience things. I heard someone say once that when you love someone, you give them a power of you. When you care about someone they have power over you; power to hurt you. And no one likes to be hurt so sometimes it's easier to just close yourself off all together.

However, love is a part of life. Pretty much everyone loves at least one person in their life whether that be romantic love or friendship love or family love. So dealing with the hurt that comes along with that sometimes is a part of life as well.

Warrior, I agree with practicly your entire post: Especially these bits, are what I was going to post anyway

it's better to have loved and lost because feeling, being, enjoying, experiencing - all of these are part of what makes us human...It's a difficult choice...Loving people requires extraordinary vulnerability and trust. That opens you for a world of hurt if all goes wrong but it also enables a world of hope and sacrifice, joyous times and incredible shared moments. You have to take it on faith that loving people is worth risking all that heartache.

That pretty much sums up exactly what I think. And um, I guess I now have post my own thoughts on it...

When you care about someone they have power over you; power to hurt you. And no one likes to be hurt so sometimes it's easier to just close yourself off all together.

Yup, yup, agree!

To me, "it is better to have loved and lost or to have never loved at all" means that even if you lost your love and it hurt, you still had the experience of loving, and I wouldn't want that taken away from me. I want to experience everything life has to offer!

That said, I do think for me there are times when it wouldn't be wise to just be carefree and love people recklessly, especially in a romantic sense. For example, if I knew that even if I liked them, they were a bad person, or if they didn't share my reglious beliefs (that would be a deal-breaker).

It says to me that you should not close yourself off from life...for example, a while ago I really liked a guy...I ended up telling him my feelings, and they were not reciprocated. I was upset/hurt/depressed but at the same time I was proud of myself for putting myself out there, being willing to take that step even though I knew very well it was entirely possible I'd end up "heartbroken" by the guy's response.

Maybe this question will be more pertinent to this audience. Since many of us don't have a lot of experience with love and loss, what about unrequited love? It it worth it? Does it still have value? I know for me that I could probably never really be "in love" if it were unrequited, so for me it would be kind of like "unrequited like," but I certainly won't go so far as to say that no one else could be "in love."

It's kind of related to loving and losing, only in this case, you never had the person in order to lose them.

^^ I think crushes will happen. Especially when you're younger, have romantic emotions searching for an object, but haven't found the right person yet. I don't think it's avoidable. It's certainly not a bad thing in and of itself, in my opinion. It can help you get a feel for what your taste in guys is, so you know more what you're looking for, I suppose. As long as you don't get too obsessed with them as to be unhealthy or miss out on potential genuine opportunities.

P.S. Valiant Lucy, that was Narnian_at_Heart who said that quote, not me.

~Riella

I can imagine myself being that person that never gets married and blackmailed into looking after other peoples kids