I think there's also more nuances to this, where the truth/falsity of the love doesn't need to be based on the extent of the attraction, but also the "shape" of the attraction. I gave some examples an earlier time it came up:
- A woman is on a date with a man, which she enjoys until she sees that his home is a dump.
- A teenager has a crush on a celebrity, with elaborate daydreams about how cool the celebrity is, not realizing how much of this is a facade created for entertainment.
- A man visits a prostitute and feels excited as he causes her to orgasm, not realizing that she fakes it for the business.
Alas, “false” love can still feel like “true” love from the inside as it’s happening. To tell it’s happening, you’d need to either be really good at keeping a level head, rely on feedback from other people you trust, or just wait until the honeymoon stage passes and find out in hindsight.
The best means I know of dealing with this issue is time. Time to allow yourself to work through your feelings and start to see clearly. It's very driven by biology, so I expect similar timelines to hold for most people:
- The first 3 months of limerence is the most intense. Depending on how you start dating someone, this could start as early as the first date, but more often starts several dates in, maybe around the time you've spent 10-20 hours physically together.
- Somewhere in the 3-6 month period you start to notice the cracks.
- By 1 year you'll be pretty clear headed. Clear enough to make big life decisions, but also still motivated to some degree by exaggerated feelings. This is probably the time you're most likely to feel justified in claiming that you found "true love".
- Around 3 years you'll be totally free of limerence. This is the point where it will be completely obvious how you really feel and if it's actually "true love".
These numbers are mostly based on my own experiences, but they match what I've heard from others. Probably someone has done a more formal study of relationship/love milestones.
Puting this in a bad way, or provocative way, but underlying your description of love seems to be a "what's in it for me" attitude. In other words, what I hear you saying about love is about you rather than about what you're offering the other.
I agree with your presentation about true versus false and if we're smitten by some image we've created in our own head, or bought into, that's not likely to last or be all that healthy. But we also probably go through a stage in every relationship where the image in our head is not completely accurate and, in cases of relationships were trying to extend, err on the side of over assessment of the best in the person and under assessment of their flaws.
But at least for me, when thinking about love it's more about the acceptance of an other with all their flaws and still wanting to be around them or give something of yourself to them and help and make their life better.
So, the idea of "true love" -- which I don't really believe in, or at least just see it as poetry -- is more about that selfless giving than anything else. Exactly how well anyone can live that life everyday for someone else I'm not sure at all.
So I'd settle for practicle love which I'll define as a two way street of mutual concern, compromise and tolerance with strong emotional attachments both selfish (want them in my life) and unselfish (want their life to be fulfilling and happy).
The description of love at the conclusion of Gene Wolfe's The Wizard gets at something important, if you read it as something that both parties are simultaneously doing.
There's also something like "just the right amount of friction" which enables true love to happen without being sabotaged by existing factors. There are things which cause relationship-breaking kind of issues, such as permanent long distance, disagreement on how many kids to have and when and how to raise them, how to earn and spend money, religion and morals, work/life balance stuff, and physical attraction. Then there's the fun kind of friction where you can grow from each other or enjoy your differences - things would be bland without these. There's also something "true" about intent to grow together and trust each other to change each others' values, so that you start converging over time and becoming more similar. Something like access to my core which I intentionally share trusting that the other person will use it for good. Yeah, many pointers to the underlying concept, good luck in the dating market.
IMO the most important factor in interpersonal relations is that it needs to be possible to have engaging/useful conversations. There are many others.
The problem: Somebody who scores low on these, can be pushed up unreasonably high in your ranking through feelings of sexual desire.
The worst thing: Sexual desire drops temporarily in the short term after orgasm, and (I heard) permanently after a 2-year period.
To probe the nature of your love:
- If you like women imagine the other person is a man. Did your liking shift? If you like men... etc.
- Generally imagine them being physically unattractive, e.g. them being a giant slime monster.
- Masturbate and check how much your liking shifted immediately after orgasm.
This helps disentangle lust and love.
Everlasting Honeymoon
I heard some people never leave the "honeymoon phase". The initial strong feelings of love persist indefinitely. IIRC scientists determined this by measuring oxytocin or something in couples married for decades. Possibly genetic, so it's not re-creatable.
If the person is a good fit, there's perhaps nothing wrong with loving them even more on top of that.
Appearance can be compelling in non-primary-sexual ways. Porn is closed, NEPPUU opened.
I think if you find the true name of true love, it'll be pretty clear what it is and how to avoid it.
I think David Buss book "When men behave badly" is a good starting point to try to understand the dynamics in hetrosexual dating and mating.
I think the concept of true love is too confused to be worth rescuing. There's a fairytale conception of it being idyllic and perfect. There's the romcom conception of it happening with strangers in unexpected circumstances. And there's many many people's personal experience of romance, which they are motivated to describe as true or not true depending on whether they want to keep the relationship or move past it.
Perhaps the definition which you give the phrase is what the meaning ought to be from the plain meaning of the words individually, but it won't be how most people use the term or what they think you mean when they hear it. Your sense of true love does seem like a fine thing to aim for. I would have liked this post if it were a tweet.
Other lies people believe about romantic/relationship love: that it can't be induced or designed. that it can't be stopped. that it is fundamentally irrational. that it is not made of atoms. that all is fair for it. that it is always good.
(I'm too lazy to type up my whole model of love right now, but as a pointer, search academic papers for the connection between limerence and OCD)
1this is too harsh. love is a good feeling actually. it is something that many people deeply and truly want.
it is good to create mental frameworks around common human desires which are congruent with a philosophy of truthseeking.
Love is true if you will fight for it. Not destroy yourself, not commit suicide but fight bravely.
Meta: I recently entered the dating market, so naturally I have lots of random thoughts on the subject which you all get to suffer through for a while. Your usual diet of dry math and agency theory will resume shortly.
Obviously the phrase “true love” has been so thoroughly overdone in so much fiction as to lose all substantive meaning. That’s what happens when we leave important conceptual work to would-be poets. We’re here to reclaim the term, because there’s a useful concept which is very naturally described by the words “true” and “love”.
You know that thing where, when you’re smitten by someone, they seem more awesome than they really are? Your brain plays up all the great things about them, and plays down all the bad things, and makes up stories about how great they are in other ways too? And then you get even more smitten by them? All that perceived-wonderfulness makes your attraction a steady state? That’s part of normal being-in-love.
… and there’s something “false” about it. Like, in some sense, you’re in love with an imaginary person, not the real person in front of you. You’re in love with this construct in your head whose merits are greater and shortcomings more minor than the real person who triggered the cascade in your heart.
But what if you can see the target of your affection with clear eyes and level head, without the pleasant tint of limerance skewing your perception, and still feel a similar level of love? What if they are actually that good a fit to you, not just in your head but in real life? Well, the obvious name for that would be “true love”: love which is not built on a map-territory mismatch, but rather on perception of your loved one as they really are.
And that does actually seem like a pretty good fit for at least some of the poetry on the subject: loving your partner as they truly are, flaws and all, blah blah blah.
Alas, “false” love can still feel like “true” love from the inside as it’s happening. To tell it’s happening, you’d need to either be really good at keeping a level head, rely on feedback from other people you trust, or just wait until the honeymoon stage passes and find out in hindsight.