If you really love something then you will set it free

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Why, when I love someone do I want to spend time alone with them? Why do I want to hold them and kiss them? Why do I want to do sex things with them? Why do I want to stare into their eyes? Why do I want to be conscious of them all the time?

Why is it not enough to just know them, to just know that they exist? Why is there this desire to have. Why do I *need* to spend time alone with them?

I've always hated and disagreed with the saying that if you truly love something then you would set it free and yet I still feel like I should live up to it.

I feel like I am weak for wanting more than to just know that the object of my love exists.

― toraneko (toraneko), Sunday, 16 March 2003 15:08 (twenty-three years ago)

Why am I apologising for wanting to be with the person I love - especially when it's mutual??? Why am I such a mentalist????????? Arrrggggghhhhh##############################

― toraneko (toraneko), Sunday, 16 March 2003 15:10 (twenty-three years ago)

That "if you love something set it free" is total fucking bullshit and I hate it and it is a meme which needs to be destroyed and blitzed off the face of the earth.

I have written on piece of paper and taped to the ceiling above my bed "THINGS ARE EITHER MEANT TO BE, OR THEY ARE NOT. IF IT WAS NOT MEANT TO BE, NOTHING YOU CAN DO CAN MAKE IT HAPPEN, IF IT WAS MEANT TO BE, NOTHING YOU CAN DO CAN MAKE IT STOP" which is also total fucking bullshit, but strangely, it is comforting bullshit.

That whole "if you love something set it free" is not comforting bullshit, it is awful fucking disheartening bullshit. If you love something, destroy it, it is the only way you will be able to have it completely.

― kate (suzy), Sunday, 16 March 2003 15:14 (twenty-three years ago)

Yeah, I'm kind of with you on that one.

― toraneko (toraneko), Sunday, 16 March 2003 15:26 (twenty-three years ago)

maybe the idea is that if you love someone it's a good idea not to keep them locked in your attic all the time.

― DV (dirtyvicar), Sunday, 16 March 2003 16:43 (twenty-three years ago)

Next time I love someone, I will keep them locked in a box. And maybe chop their arms and legs off for good measure! Ha-HAH!

― kate (dali), Sunday, 16 March 2003 16:45 (twenty-three years ago)

perhaps you are all fucking mentalists

― jess (dubplatestyle), Sunday, 16 March 2003 16:56 (twenty-three years ago)

But the thing is, if the feeling is mutual, then it's the other person's free choice to be with you so you're not impinging on his or her freedom by spending time with him or her. It's when the feeling isn't necessarily mutual, when the other person's need for space conflicts with your desire for him or her, that love should allow your respect for the other person's wishes to override your desire for him or her. Unless I'm missing a point and stating the obvious.

― sundar subramanian (sundar), Sunday, 16 March 2003 17:33 (twenty-three years ago)

maybe it means to set free the memory, let it go etc.

― Ronan (Ronan), Sunday, 16 March 2003 17:35 (twenty-three years ago)

who sang that "free! free! set them free!" song? hall and oates? that was good

― jess (dubplatestyle), Sunday, 16 March 2003 17:39 (twenty-three years ago)

sting. why do i know that?

― Jody Beth Rosen (Jody Beth Rosen), Sunday, 16 March 2003 17:40 (twenty-three years ago)

"If you love somebody you will give them freedom fries!"

or, alternately:

"If you love somebody, you will give them copies of this"

― Daniel_Rf (Daniel_Rf), Sunday, 16 March 2003 17:42 (twenty-three years ago)

But love is *never* mutual! That's just not how it works! I can only ever love people who don't give a fuck about me. And if anyone ever expresses love for me, I feel boxed in and contained by their expectations of me and get freaked out and run away. If you get so used to the idea that love is never mutual, and that you have to keep someone in a box in order to have them, you can never accept being loved, because you feel like that is putting you in a box.

I'm not making sense, am I? I'm going to shut up and watch Time Team now.

― kate (suzy), Sunday, 16 March 2003 17:43 (twenty-three years ago)

"Love something, set it free" is the opposite of the overall concensus which is that when you love something you want to have it all the time. So you love someone, you move in with them, do each other's dishes, get married. "If you love something, destroy it". That's the way. Like that ILM thread on the go just now, about being very careful listening to favourite records, else you spoil them through overuse. And some people listen to their favourites all the time, happily. But I'm into exciting divorces. Temporary-separation chic.

― Eyeball Kicks (Eyeball Kicks), Sunday, 16 March 2003 17:43 (twenty-three years ago)

Maybe if you love someone you need to move far away to an island and live with them, far away from everyone, never to return.

― Ronan (Ronan), Sunday, 16 March 2003 17:45 (twenty-three years ago)

maybe you're all just scary and people dont like scary people

― jess (dubplatestyle), Sunday, 16 March 2003 17:46 (twenty-three years ago)

Scary girls need love, too.

― kate (suzy), Sunday, 16 March 2003 17:54 (twenty-three years ago)

This thread is responsible for me buying a Sting record not recorded with the Police. I haven't done it just yet but I will sometime in the future, perhaps even this afternoon, and when I do I will blame it on jess and JBR. Damn you.

Also, scary girls might need love but you're not getting any from me. I'm sure you're very very disappointed. I need somebody who is unscary to counteract the horrifying danger that I represent.

― Millar (Millar), Sunday, 16 March 2003 19:29 (twenty-three years ago)

No Millar, don't! It's also got "Love is the Seventh Wave" on it - and that's just unspeakable.

― Kim (Kim), Sunday, 16 March 2003 19:43 (twenty-three years ago)

millar get a brian eno rec (w/phil collins on drums!) instead.

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Sunday, 16 March 2003 20:02 (twenty-three years ago)

DREAM OF THE BLUE TURTLES

― jess (dubplatestyle), Sunday, 16 March 2003 20:06 (twenty-three years ago)

"If you love something, destroy it" is fiendishly depressing.

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Sunday, 16 March 2003 20:09 (twenty-three years ago)

Oh, that Sting record is about when he got *really* embarrassing...

Shouldn't the sentiment more be, If you hate someone, kick them the f*ck out the door immediately?

I've only had to do that once. It involved a lot of pain and trauma, but the kicking bit was actually v. enjoyable. (Actually, it was more a case of throwing their bag down the hall and screaming 'GET OUT!')

I'm terribly off-topic but I felt like justifying my existence.

― ChristineSH (chrissie1068), Sunday, 16 March 2003 20:10 (twenty-three years ago)

jess's first post here rocked my world completely with its righteousness. I mean let's be honest, the sentiment of "if you love something you will set it free" is pretty GLARINGLY OBVIOUSLY correct: if you love someone, the first & truest expression of that love is to give them room to be exactly who they are in all situations. That's what "set them/him/her/it free" means: that love does not attempt to control its object, or, more directly, that if you're attempting to control somebody, then that's not love.

Again this seems kinda goes-without-saying...no love relationship in which both parties don't allow each other absolute freedom can really reach the Ultimate Good Time Party Action of a relationship in which such freedom exists.

(There are some obvious & beautiful parallels with the parts of Christianity that I like here btw: the notion of total voluntary surrender to a loving God without expectation of any return, though that's trick because the promise of getting something in return is almost impossible to erase from the memebank, etc)

― J0hn Darn1elle (J0hn Darn1elle), Sunday, 16 March 2003 21:51 (twenty-three years ago)

"if you love something, destroy it" was the psychosis of one of the main characters of The Fountainhead, so I'd expect everyone here to hate the idea (dramatic as it sounds)

― Maria (Maria), Sunday, 16 March 2003 21:53 (twenty-three years ago)

i tht jess just wanted to fuck some mentalists

― mark s (mark s), Sunday, 16 March 2003 21:59 (twenty-three years ago)

My non-sequitur got me looking at my old blog archives... there was a lot of really bad 'splitting up' stuff on there just over two years ago. I was half-tempted to put them back online, guilty name removed, but then I thought -- NAH.

Or maybe one day wen I'm particularly bored...

― ChristineSH (chrissie1068), Sunday, 16 March 2003 23:26 (twenty-three years ago)

In the past I've been of the "If you love something, destroy it" persuasion but since then my self-esteem has improved a lot and now I do not want to destroy.

Nor do I feel claustrophobic due to someone having nice, squishy feelings for me. I don't have to punish them. And I'm not thinking "What's wrong with them that they would like someone like me?".

It's pretty good actually.

― toraneko (toraneko), Sunday, 16 March 2003 23:32 (twenty-three years ago)

It's better than "If you love someone, imprison them in a tower" maybe.

― N. (nickdastoor), Monday, 17 March 2003 00:18 (twenty-three years ago)

I personally like "If you love someone, store them in your cooler".

― Nicole (Nicole), Monday, 17 March 2003 00:25 (twenty-three years ago)

This used to be "If you really something, go to France with it."

― felicity (felicity), Monday, 17 March 2003 00:41 (twenty-three years ago)

I personally like "If you love someone, store them in your cooler".

V.v. tempting. I want that certain special someone to choose [1] to be with me, but all indications are that it's simply not going to happen.

[1] That is why in the "Hell Is Other People" thread I compared dating to jobhunting -- in both cases you're putting your best self forward and hoping to be the one selected.

Also, scary girls might need love but you're not getting any from me.

B-b-but I thought guys go wild for crazy dramatic women?

― j.lu (j.lu), Monday, 17 March 2003 00:47 (twenty-three years ago)

Thanks John. You put that much better than I did.

― sundar subramanian (sundar), Monday, 17 March 2003 00:48 (twenty-three years ago)

these things you express are an ideal. No one gets to live in the idea world. The rest of us down here on imperfect planet earth with imperfect human emotions just have to make do.

― kate (suzy), Monday, 17 March 2003 00:56 (twenty-three years ago)

this thread makes me wanna play "Licensed To Ill" really loudly. And I agree with Sting (dear god, I never thought anybody would get me to say that).

― Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Monday, 17 March 2003 01:09 (twenty-three years ago)

I think maybe if the wording were changed to 'If you really like someone set them free' we would all be happy and then there'd be world peace.

― N. (nickdastoor), Monday, 17 March 2003 01:11 (twenty-three years ago)

Oh and my def. of what Sting is saying is the same as John D's.

― Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Monday, 17 March 2003 01:15 (twenty-three years ago)

Kate are you talking to me or Toraneko? If me, I'm not talking in ideals: reporting from experience!

― J0hn Darn1elle (J0hn Darn1elle), Monday, 17 March 2003 03:07 (twenty-three years ago)

I can certainly say that in relationships where I don't feel like I'm "free" (as in the "free" of the thread title), I react to that not unlike a cornered animal, i.e. not well

― electric sound of jim (electricsound), Monday, 17 March 2003 03:10 (twenty-three years ago)

What a Freudian typo I made up there. I tell you, I get no love.

― felicity (felicity), Monday, 17 March 2003 03:11 (twenty-three years ago)

CUZ MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY'S WHAT WE'RE ALL ABBBBOOOOOOOOOOUT

― jess (dubplatestyle), Monday, 17 March 2003 03:18 (twenty-three years ago)

ali baba and the forty thieves...ali baba and the forty thieves...

― Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Monday, 17 March 2003 03:19 (twenty-three years ago)

is it possible that whoever said this was talking exclusively abt pigeons and frogs?

― mark p (Mark P), Monday, 17 March 2003 04:22 (twenty-three years ago)

I think it was seagulls actually.

It's so silly to apply it to humans. If you really love someone you want to ensnare them in your sticky web of child-bearing, house-buying, co-dependent intrigue. Effryone knows that.

― toraneko (toraneko), Monday, 17 March 2003 05:22 (twenty-three years ago)

If you love someone, actually, that person will probably set you free, usually right when you think it's starting to go really well. At least, that's been my exp.

― Skottie, Monday, 17 March 2003 06:51 (twenty-three years ago)

two weeks pass...

Yes exactly Skottie!

"I know the door
That shut's just before
You get to the dream..."

― chris sallis, Tuesday, 1 April 2003 16:15 (twenty-three years ago)

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If you really love something then you will set it free - b.s.