Ah, the question which has been running through my mind for quite a long time and I write this Answer more for myself than for you.

Love and friendship is often regarded as two separate entities.But are they really that different? Love is defined as having a great affection or liking for someone and isn't that what friendship is supposed to be? At least it should if one removes the adjective 'great'. You don't befriend some random person without some liking, do you?. By the way, I don't consider befriending as what people do in online chat rooms. I meant BEFRIENDING. I hope you got what I was trying to say.

So only after this initial attraction or liking, you will get to know each other. And I suppose this is what happens in Love. Till now both represent the same area in a Love-Friendship Venn diagram. Now that you got attracted, you start talking. But that alone does not grow your relationship. No opposite gender will consider you as a good friend unless there is some level of trust, affection, security and mutual sharing. But isn't these expected in Love too? Yeah, now you can scratch your heads.

Till now both Love and friendship are just same things running parallel. But then you don't fall in Love with all those whom are friends with. So there is something that now comes that makes you think that he/she is that perfect one whom you want to live all the life. Now this mystical attraction could be the reason why you in the first case approached or this could be the one that can pop out of now where making you go all crazy and upside down. That would be the point where Love branches out of the friendship stream and takes its own course. Now this mystical attraction could be the one of those characteristics or a special care and Love you might have yearned for years. Or it could appear to be reasonless. But I am always biased to the latter part where in the mystical attraction comes after knowing them for a particular time. I feel that's what makes your Love built on a strong foundation, but then this is purely my belief and reasoning. Anyway anything it might be, but you could strongly feel the difference when you are in Love and when you are just a friend.

I would like to end it with this note. I am not a strong believer in the 'Love should end in marriage' belief. Obviously, it would be nice if it did but then if it did not then that does not in any way degrade your Love. You either Love or don't Love her, there is no such thing called Loved her.

The chemical process in the brain that is different between social bonding and (romantic) pair bonding.


Yes. Very.


Friendship "is what it is," it's not "supposed" to be something.
It's why such subjective terms as "great" and "affection" and "liking" are used in the first place.

If love and friendship were "supposed" to be something you would use more concrete terms...such as oxytocin, and testosterone, and estrogen, and adrenaline, and dopamine, and serotonin, and partner idealization, and vasopressin.


Again, subjective and vague.
"Liking" can be based on something as simple as hair color, smell, or lack of smell.


Not really.
Okay. Not what people do in online chat rooms.
What about strangers from online chat rooms that go out of the chat room and email for years, or meet up but use the chat room mostly because it's easier?
What about strangers on the bus?
Or strangers you meet on your first day of the job?
Or strangers you meet on your first day of school?
Or strangers you approach in a bar or club?

Or are all "befriend" relationships defined anecdotally in far far hindsight after you've idealized the relationship and come to believe you "really" like them only now that you really truly know them after, what, months, years, decades?


Love will always end in pair bonding, which is ultimately wedded.
If it doesn't, then it's not really love.
Love has a purpose.
Everything you feel does.
It's not just solely to reward you with feeling good for the sake of feeling good due to doing a good job of finding someone nice to you.
Everything you feel is ultimately attempting to push you to do something, not just feel something.

I disagree with Love will always end in pair bonding, which is ultimately wedded.
If it doesn't, then it's not really love.

Love does not mean... you always have to wedd...

ok say you have live a full life and was married an lost your husband in some way... but you have reach your old age gracefully ... but now there is this women or man ... that you believe you love ... why would they have to wed ... why not feel that love from the other and live together as they just be happy & in love ... what if their in a nursing or assisted living home ... don't understand ...why they could not be happily in love with each other ...

.

I totally agree with you mystical.

Love doesnt have to lead to marriage or even a long term relationship to qualify as romantic love.

In fact i suspect that many people marry people with whom there is mutual love , and then they are forced to break up because they can 't sustain the relationship because their values , lifestyles or life goals are clashing badly.


You can genuinely share love with a person but decide to not explore marriage or a long term relationship with the person because you both understand that despite your love, you are not the right fit for each other in terms of building a life together.

As for the issue of friendship vs love, while it is possible in theory for every friendship to blossom into a love relationship, but what I find is that it is common for one person in a friendship to develop romantic feelings for their friend but the other person in the friendship does not reciprocate those romantic feelings.

If the dynamic was mutual where two friends fall in love with each other, that would make love so much easier but too often, one person is pining away for the other and the friend who doesnt reciprocate the romantic feelings feels awkward , making the friendship downright uncomfortable.

this can get really deep..... a ''Friend'' most of the time between same sex and

a few of apposite sex are PEOPLE WITH ''MATCHING ILLISIONS''......THE REST ARE GUYS

CIRCLING AND HOPING TO GET LUCKY EVENTUALLY....''LOVE'' FOR THE MEANING OF LOVE

I BELIEVE YOU NEED TO CHECK WITH DR LEO BUSCAGLIA......ITS SORT OF IN THE ''EYE

OF THE BEHOLDER'' WHEN IS THE LAST TIME YOU TOLD SOME ONE ''YOU LIKED THEM''?...

هاي

Eh. All in how you look at it.

My answer is, there's no difference in the person. Or in the emotional bonds, or anything else related to human being part of it.

The only difference is what we DO about the feelings of closeness, importance, and so on, which go together to mean "love."

Take love, remove whatever limits on it due to cultural training, add in sexual desire, and you get marriage/affair/LTR, etc.

Take love, add in familial links (automatically removing sexual attraction/ permission) and you get parent/child, or other such relative-love.

And so on.

Just how I think of it, not pushing it.