Paul Nervy Notes
“Jokes, poems, stories, and a lot of philosophy, psychology, and sociology.”


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Sociology, sexuality, love.  ---  .This section is about love.  ---  1/24/2006


Sociology, sexuality, love.  ---  (1)  To what extent does love have magically transformative powers?  (2) To what extent do music, poetry and the other arts have magically transformative powers.  (3)  To what extent does nonfiction prose have magically transformative powers?  (4) By magically transformative powers I mean the following:  (A) Unable to tell when it is happening.  (B) Unable to determine how it is happening.  (C) Unable to have foreseen or planned the effects of the change.  Unable to have intentionally produced the change.  ---  1/1/2002


Sociology, sexuality, love.  ---  (1) Are you "in like" if you are in control?  Are you "in love" if you are out of control?  (2) Is delusional, or obsessive, or possessive, or pathological, or unrequited love still true love?  (3) Is love totally subjective?  If you think you are in love, are you in love?  (4) After what degree of knowing a person does infatuation turn to love?  (5) If you love her only during sex, are you in love?  (6) If you haven't seen her in years, and still think about her, are you just missing her as the best love you ever had, or are you actually still in love?  (7) At what degree of strength does like become love?  (8) I am an idealist.  Love (pure romantic love) is pure idealism.  There is no such thing as practical true romantic love.  (9) Face it, I won't get all I need from one woman.  I will have to go to one woman for "x" need, and another woman for "y" need, and yet another for "z" need, as far as the needs of physical sex, looks, intelligence and conversation, heart warming love and caring affection, and social acceptability (been seen together in public).  A real bargain is getting two or more of above needs taken care of by one girl.  (10) Objective criteria for being in love.  (A) Do you spend more than 50% of your free time thinking about her?  (B) Do you spend more than 50% of the time you spend thinking of her while you are in a state of having the "willies" or "shakes"?  ---  10/01/1994


Sociology, sexuality, love.  ---  (1) How does the experience of love differ between men and women?  (2) Who feels love more, the blue collar (more feeling) or the white collar (more thinking)?  (3) How do we "understand" emotions?  (4) Can philosophers know what love is, since they deal with concepts abstractly?  Do poets know what love is?  (5) To what degree does suppressed ardor drive good philosophers?  (6) What couple had the strongest love in history?  Were they philosophers?  I don't think so.  ---  01/04/1997


Sociology, sexuality, love.  ---  (1) Is my friend my lover and my lover my friend?  Especially if my friend (a girl) gives me important things (conversation) that my comfortable lover doesn't?  (2) I love it when things get complicated in love.  Like I imagine they do in France.  I should move to France.  They understand love in France.  Americans are so practical and business minded.  (3) Complicated love is bittersweet, and it makes you grow.  It is good because it is very real.  It is a reality of life many people never get to experience.  ---  08/30/1996


Sociology, sexuality, love.  ---  (1) Love as companionship, and friendship against loneliness.  (2) Love as lust.  (3) Love as a partnership, teamwork, to get goals.  (4) Love as sharing, communication, putting heads together.  (5) Love as a contract, a deal.  (6) Love as admiration, worship, devotion, enslavement.  (7) Love as support, parenting.  ---  12/15/1997


Sociology, sexuality, love.  ---  (1) Love as money and kids vs. love as the metaphysical union of two souls.  (2) Love of greater for lesser vs. love of lesser for greater vs. love of equals.  (3) How hard you have loved and grieved a lost love or unrequited love.  (4) The reasons why you love them.  (5) Objectively, how happy you would have been together, and for how long it would have lasted.  (6) Love missed, or that couldn't be, because of circumstances.  (7) Your true love is your intellectual and emotional (emotionally perceiving) equal.  (8) The middle manager hell of no emotion.  (9) The best love (living ideal) you ever met, had, and lost, vs. the second best, or the love that you settled for.  ---  10/27/1993


Sociology, sexuality, love.  ---  (1) To the dull, unimaginative, and mentally inactive, a real love affair may exceed all they have imagined, and may teach them many powerful new things.  And they are thus very satisfied and happy with love.  (2) At some point of mental development there is a break even point.  (3) To the intelligent, creative, and mentally active, a real life love affair will not come close to the many ideal affairs they had with an ideal imagined partner.  They will learn nothing from the affair or partner.  And they will be profoundly disappointed, dissatisfied, and frustrated with love.  ---  01/10/1994


Sociology, sexuality, love.  ---  (1) True love is when feelings of love and sex are strong and inseparable.  (2) First love is the strongest and truest?  (3) How important is love and sex?  The ideal and pursuit of perfect love and sex gives us hope and drives us forward.  ---  12/30/1996


Sociology, sexuality, love.  ---  (1) We need oxygen and we know how to breathe it instinctually.  (2) We need love but we do not always realize that we need it.  We are not always instinctually aware that we need it.  ---  11/14/1998


Sociology, sexuality, love.  ---  A friend is someone you can talk to.  A lover is someone you can fu*k.  ---  12/30/1992


Sociology, sexuality, love.  ---  A set of problems.  (1) You love her more than she loves you.  (A) It feels good because you adore her, obsess over her, idealize and worship her.  You are in love.  (B) It feels bad because you get jerked around and have no emotional control.  (2) She loves you more than you love her.  (A) It feels good to be loyally and unconditionally loved.  (B) It feels bad because you miss the spark of being head over heels in love.  ---  12/30/1995


Sociology, sexuality, love.  ---  All love is temporary, transitory, and in flux.  Love is not stable, constant, or permanent.  ---  12/30/1992


Sociology, sexuality, love.  ---  Animals, children, and adults all need love (to love someone, and to be loved by someone) in order to be happy, at peace (satisfied), and to survive.  For adults, parental love is b.s..  ---  03/16/1997


Sociology, sexuality, love.  ---  At what point are you obsessed with your lover?  At what point is the obsession unhealthy?  ---  09/20/1994


Sociology, sexuality, love.  ---  Can I only love something better than I am?  Am I such an idealist?  Am I genetically programmed to fall in love with the smartest and hottest babe I meet, and love no other as long as I live?  Am I thus doomed?  ---  10/01/1994


Sociology, sexuality, love.  ---  Can't sleep, can't eat.  The symptoms of being in love are the same as the symptoms of depression.  ---  9/1/2000


Sociology, sexuality, love.  ---  Can't wait to see her, can't bear to leave her.  ---  12/30/1992


Sociology, sexuality, love.  ---  Comfortable love.  Versus.  Difficult love.  ---  11/8/2005


Sociology, sexuality, love.  ---  Consider a couple, one of whom says, "I am so in love with you.", and the other then saying, "I am so in love with you, too."  Later on in the day, one says, "I love you very much.", and the other then says, "I love  you very much, too."  This is the extent of their conversation.  That is all they say to each other.  Now, who is to say that this hypothetical couple is not deeply in love with each other?  Assuming that they are speaking truthfully, and not lying.  It goes on like this for years, let's say, fifty years.  That's a lot of love.  That's a lot of valentines.  That's a lot of vomit.  ---  4/16/2006


Sociology, sexuality, love.  ---  Do I love her?  Do I love her because she is the only one I can stand and get along with?  Do I love her because she is the only one who will fu*k me?  ---  09/20/1994


Sociology, sexuality, love.  ---  Falling in love and falling out of love.  How long it takes for either.  How often it happens.  For example, falling in love or out of love too quickly and too often is bad.  Falling in love or out of love too slowly and too rarely is bad also.  ---  12/28/2003


Sociology, sexuality, love.  ---  For all social phenomena there are corresponding psychological phenomena including thoughts, emotions, attitudes, drives, and memories.  Nothing is ever simply sociological.  Especially love.  ---  11/14/1998


Sociology, sexuality, love.  ---  How can we measure love?  (1) By the happiness we feel when we are with the other person?  However, the human capacity to feel happy appears to be limited in degree.  (2) By the amount of emotional pain you feel when the other person is absent?  The human capacity to feel pain appears to be limitless, so this may be a more accurate measure than "1".  (3) By the degree your ability to think is degraded by the person.  I.e. how dizzy the person makes you.  Or how fast they make your heart beat.  ---  4/28/1999


Sociology, sexuality, love.  ---  How much do you emotionally need the other person?  How much do you think you need the other person?  How much do you actually need the other person?  In order to avoid emotional pain.  In order to avoid pathological psychological states.  ---  6/23/2002


Sociology, sexuality, love.  ---  How much do you love her?  How often do thoughts to use her run through your head?  Some people can't control these thoughts.  Does it mean you love her less?  How hard do you work against these thoughts?  Does that mean you love her more?  Do these thoughts mean you are a faker, and that your love is not genuine?  ---  05/30/1996


Sociology, sexuality, love.  ---  I believe in the redemptive power of love.  I believe in the power of love to save my soul, to heal my mind, to bring me psychological health, and to save society.  Without love I am a twisted wretch.  With love I am healthy, and my spirit breathes again.  ---  6/1/1999


Sociology, sexuality, love.  ---  I do not believe in love.  It is a myth, an ideal, a hope, a delusion, an illusion.  ---  12/30/1992


Sociology, sexuality, love.  ---  I don't believe in love anymore.  Love is just a temporary state (up to 2 years) in order to get you to have kids.  Love doesn't last.  True love doesn't exist.  People are selfish.  I used to believe in love, but it is just an ideal, not real.  Love is only a survival tactic.  ---  07/30/1996


Sociology, sexuality, love.  ---  I love anyone who loves me.  Sadly, this is not true.  ---  9/22/1998


Sociology, sexuality, love.  ---  I never thought love would mean selling your soul to the devil just to get laid, but that's what it is.  ---  12/30/1992


Sociology, sexuality, love.  ---  I saw something in her eyes that was not there.  I guess I imagined some great and noble possibility in her, but it never panned out.  Or maybe it was an illusion that I saw, some trick of her iris or the shape of her face.  I dreamed a dream of what we could be.  She had no inkling, and all our talks came to nothing.  Our great love was one of possibility and potential only.  Why would not she walk with me?  Why would not she talk to me?  ---  4/30/2007


Sociology, sexuality, love.  ---  I used to think there is no magic.  Now I think there definitely is magic.  Love is a trick that gets us to reproduce, and even more importantly love is a trick that keeps us alive.  Love makes life worth living.  Nature is the magician.  Love is the trick.  Love may be an illusion, but it beats the alternative.  Enjoy the show!  ---  10/23/2000


Sociology, sexuality, love.  ---  Is it love or is it two people using each other for emotional crutches?  ---  12/30/1992


Sociology, sexuality, love.  ---  Is it right to love someone who doesn't love you?  No, it is hurtful.  Talking romantic, sexual love here.  Not parental love, or friendship love.  ---  12/30/1995


Sociology, sexuality, love.  ---  Is it sincere or are they using you to satisfy their sexual urges or gain something non-sexual from you, i.e., kissing up to you to gain power over you, or hurt you.  ---  12/30/1992


Sociology, sexuality, love.  ---  Is true love possible?  What is true love?  Is there love at first sight?  Is the above possible for me?  Is friendship possible for me?  If true love exists, is it temporary or can it endure?  If it is true love, are you in love every single minute?  Definitions of true love.  (1) Love with the entire heart and mind.  (2) Forever, everlasting, monogamy.  (3) Never met anyone you loved more.  (4) Can't even imagine a stronger love, or a better partner or relationship.  (5) Obsession.  (6) Respect and admiration.  ---  11/30/1996


Sociology, sexuality, love.  ---  Is true love romantic love?  Can true love between a man and woman exist with children present to sap the love off?  ---  11/30/1996


Sociology, sexuality, love.  ---  Its best if love happens naturally.  Otherwise its too much time, energy, and money all for some attention and a spoonful.  ---  6/11/2002


Sociology, sexuality, love.  ---  Like and lust are rare and fleeting.  We desire them so bad, yet we get them so little.  It is a shit set up.  It sucks.  ---  12/30/1992


Sociology, sexuality, love.  ---  Love (psychological aspects) as opposed to sex (physical aspects).  How much to put out emotionally?  Not too much, so that if they pull back, they can't mock you.  But enough to make them feel you are giving, sensitive, not cold.  So just put out a lie, or rather a myth.  ---  12/30/1992


Sociology, sexuality, love.  ---  Love as obsession.  ---  8/15/2005


Sociology, sexuality, love.  ---  Love can be analyzed in four aspects.  The emotional and physical comfort you give and take.  ---  03/30/1993


Sociology, sexuality, love.  ---  Love don't last?  True love don't exist?  Love as respect, trust, honesty, open communication, good sex, compatible, fairness, equality, justice, liberty, true attraction, both mentally healthy.  ---  12/30/1992


Sociology, sexuality, love.  ---  Love feels as good and helps as much as rejection feels bad and damages.  ---  10/30/1997


Sociology, sexuality, love.  ---  Love is a selfish high or pleasure that keeps us alive.  ---  11/20/1997


Sociology, sexuality, love.  ---  Love is a state of longing and pining for what you don't have.  Once possessed the love object becomes regular and boring.  In this respect love is very idealistic.  ---  10/01/1994


Sociology, sexuality, love.  ---  Love is an upset stomach.  ---  9/1/2000


Sociology, sexuality, love.  ---  Love is biodegradable.  ---  5/20/1999


Sociology, sexuality, love.  ---  Love is more important than sex.  Orgasm lasts only a few seconds.  Foreplay lasts only a few minutes.  But the time spent just being together is hours, and if you are in love with the person you will be much happier for these many hours.  ---  12/30/1995


Sociology, sexuality, love.  ---  Love is necessary.  Sex is necessary.  Love is more necessary than sex.  Avoid pathological unhealthy love.  Avoid pathological unhealthy sex.  ---  11/14/1998


Sociology, sexuality, love.  ---  Love is something to be felt, not understood.  Love is an emotion.  It is not to be reasoned or known conceptually.  ---  8/23/1998


Sociology, sexuality, love.  ---  Love is the temporary hope or delusion that you finally met someone who understands you, respects you, shares your interests, shares your views (agrees with you), and trusts you.  ---  12/30/1992


Sociology, sexuality, love.  ---  Love of idealized other person vs. love of real other person.  ---  12/30/1992


Sociology, sexuality, love.  ---  Love, before it falls apart, is pure idealism, and feels great, and is what I live for.  ---  09/01/1994


Sociology, sexuality, love.  ---  Love, being in love, is a giddy, high, happy feeling toward your lover and life.  Physically you feel warm and tingly all over, and get the shakes and the willies, or have a type of adrenaline rush.  ---  9/20/1994


Sociology, sexuality, love.  ---  Love, kill it before it grows.  ---  12/30/1992


Sociology, sexuality, love.  ---  Love, types.  (1) Wild passionate love vs. stable boring love.  (2) Young love vs. old love.  (3) First love vs. much, much, later.  ---  12/30/1992


Sociology, sexuality, love.  ---  Love, what did you expect?  Better conversations.  What did you get?  Boredom.  ---  4/15/2007


Sociology, sexuality, love.  ---  Love: either you break their heart or they break your heart.  There's no winning for anyone.  ---  12/30/1992


Sociology, sexuality, love.  ---  Love.  (1) Is it a bullshit illusion that does not exist for anyone?  Or am I just incapable of love?  (2) Feeling and expression of love.  Is feeling 90% in love and expressing 10% better than feeling 80% in love and expressing 20%?  ---  09/20/1994


Sociology, sexuality, love.  ---  Love.  (1) It is a delusion.  (2) It is a shit compromise of ideals.  (3) A psychological, sociological, economic and political event.  ---  12/30/1992


Sociology, sexuality, love.  ---  Love.  So difficult to find a match.  Looked so hard to find love.  When it finally appears, love evaporates, it disappears, it is an illusion.  Love is not worth the effort.  There are several reasons why love seems not worth the effort.  One reason is that it is difficult to know anything about anyone.  Another reason is that people are constantly changing, people are moving targets.  A third reason is that the heart has reasons all its own.  The heart does what it wants.  ---  12/1/2006


Sociology, sexuality, love.  ---  Loving women is like being held a long-term captive, requiring occasional futile gestures on your part to try to preserve your dignity and sanity, yet knowing that at any time they can take it away from you if they so decide.  ---  5/17/2001


Sociology, sexuality, love.  ---  More than friends, less than lovers.  It is a great sociological phenomenon.  And a good name for a song.  ---  11/11/1998


Sociology, sexuality, love.  ---  PART ONE.  The psycological side of love.  (1) There is an intellectual side to love.  You have to be aware of what you have and how precious it is.  (2) There is an emotive side to love, obviously.  The emotion of being in love.  (3) Intelligent, emotionally sensitive people have great love affairs.  Dim, callous people are doing a pale imitation of love.  Smart, yet callous, people are also doing a pale imitation of love .  Dim, yet emotionally sensitive people are also doing a pale imitation of love.     PART TWO.  There is a also a physical side to love.  There is a physicality.  There is physical sex.  There is physical beauty.  Should one say that only people having sex are in love?  No.  Should one argue that only beautiful people are in love?  No.  ---  10/30/2005


Sociology, sexuality, love.  ---  People need love.  Deny it at your peril.  Be choosy where you get it from.  ---  11/14/1998


Sociology, sexuality, love.  ---  Romantic love dwells on love lost.  What they really miss is what the love could have been in an ideal world, but what it probably would not have been in this world.  It is grief for an ideal love.  ---  12/30/1996


Sociology, sexuality, love.  ---  Sex without love.  Love without sex.  Both suck.  ---  12/29/1997


Sociology, sexuality, love.  ---  She makes my pulse race.  The sound of her voice.  The way she walks.  The look in her eye.  The touch of her lips.  The way her body feels next to mine.  The things she says.  She makes me hopeful.  She makes me happy.  She makes me calm.  She makes me excited.  ---  9/1/2005


Sociology, sexuality, love.  ---  The amount of love in a relationship is the sum of each person's love for the other.  ---  4/28/1999


Sociology, sexuality, love.  ---  The answer to the question, "Why did we break up?", can be as mysterious as the answer to the question, "Why did we hook up?"  ---  8/19/2004


Sociology, sexuality, love.  ---  The best way to get over lost love is to find a new lover, they say.  ---  9/23/1998


Sociology, sexuality, love.  ---  The healthy, felt need for love and search for love is more instinctual in some people than others.  Or are they less repressed?  Or are they "more in tune with themselves"?  What does it mean to be "in tune with oneself"?  How to do it?  ---  11/14/1998


Sociology, sexuality, love.  ---  The person you love the most is the person who brings the most out of you.  ---  2/25/2000


Sociology, sexuality, love.  ---  The spectrum from "fu*k you" to "I love you".  (1) Fu*k you.  I hate you.  I don't care what happens to you.  I will hurt you if I get the chance.  I will go out of my way to hurt you.  (2) I love you.  I care what happens to you.  I will help you if I have chance.  I will go out of my way to help you.  ---  12/30/1992


Sociology, sexuality, love.  ---  There is no love, only decreasing levels of dislike, repulsion, conflict, and ignorance.  ---  12/30/1992


Sociology, sexuality, love.  ---  There is no love, only like and lust.  ---  12/30/1992


Sociology, sexuality, love.  ---  There will always be someone with whom you are falling in love.  There will always be someone for whom you pine.  You will always be desiring, longing, wishing, hoping for a lover, and getting upset about it.  Humans are genetically engineered to seek love and sex, apparently all life long.  This realization makes it easier to handle.  ---  12/23/2006


Sociology, sexuality, love.  ---  Three more types of love.  (1) Last love: the opposite of first love.  Last love is the last lover you have in your life before you die.  (2) Ripe love: the opposite of new love.  Ripe love is any love beyond the seven year (itch) line.  (3) Old love: the opposite of young love.  Old love is the love you have in your old age.  ---  8/9/2000


Sociology, sexuality, love.  ---  Three types of love.  (1) Young love.  The love between teenagers.  (2) First love.  The first time you fall in love.  It might occur when you are an adult.  So it is different from young love.  (3) New love.  The first meeting with a person when you fall in love with them.  It is different from both young love and first love.  It need not be your first love, nor when you are young.  ---  7/9/1998


Sociology, sexuality, love.  ---  To be in love, to have someone to love, and to be loved by someone, is more a feeling of peace than it is a feeling of joy.  ---  03/16/1997


Sociology, sexuality, love.  ---  True mutual love may be rare, but true love by one for another is more common.  What is this true one way love?  Accepting them for who they are, undeluded.  Wanting the best for them.  ---  12/30/1995


Sociology, sexuality, love.  ---  Two conceptions of love.  (1) Love is a psychological emotion.  (2) Love is a social bond.  A social relationship.  A social attraction.  ---  11/14/1998


Sociology, sexuality, love.  ---  Two great kinds of love/sex.  (1) Unconditional love.  Sex any time.  Vs. (2) Love tough to earn and easy to lose, with rare sex.  (3) Get both 1 and 2.  ---  01/30/1994


Sociology, sexuality, love.  ---  Two kinds of love.  (1) Person A loves person B because person B loves person A.  (2) Person A loves person B regardless of whether person B loves person A.  (3) The above two are different from conditional vs. unconditional love.  ---  06/10/1994


Sociology, sexuality, love.  ---  Two types of love.  (1) Love as ego glorification and ego gratification.  Selfish love is all about you.  (2) Selfless love is about the other person.  ---  8/15/2005


Sociology, sexuality, love.  ---  Two wrong, extreme views or attitudes about love and sex.  (1) Having a girlfriend will do nothing for me.  Having a girlfriend will not help me at all.  (2) Having a girlfriend will do everything for me.  Having a girlfriend will solve all my problems.  ---  7/31/2006


Sociology, sexuality, love.  ---  Types of love.  (1) Non-sexual love:  Parental love.  Sibling love.  Love of friends.  (2) Sexual love.  (3) To love someone is to care deeply about them.  You can love someone without liking them?  ---  12/29/1997


Sociology, sexuality, love.  ---  Ultimate circle of unrequited love.  Hetero male loves a lesbian female, who loves a hetero female, who loves a homo male, who loves original hetero male.  ---  12/30/1996


Sociology, sexuality, love.  ---  Unconditional love.  I am incapable of it.  Which is why I should not have kids.  ---  6/30/1998


Sociology, sexuality, love.  ---  Unrequited love.  (1) A major, pathological component of the traditional conception of romantic love is pining away for an unrequited love, or for a lover who has dumped you.  This feeling is not really love but rather either grief or a wallowing in and enjoying of feelings of pain (self pity?), which is actually masochism, not love.  (2) The idea "you don't know what you have till it is gone" reflects a similar idea.  Those people can't let themselves enjoy love when they have it.  And they call it love when it is gone.  But it is only masochistic regret.  This inability to enjoy things at the moment happens in many areas of life, and at many ages.  ---  12/30/1996


Sociology, sexuality, love.  ---  What if two people get together based on overwhelming physical attraction, and then never get to know each other through a communication process known as "talking to each other", let alone find out that they hold vastly disparate views from each other on a wide variety of issues?  ---  8/10/2006


Sociology, sexuality, love.  ---  What is love?  (1) Obsession.  Want to be with them all the time.  Can not live without them.  (2) Admiration, worship, respect for ideal.  (3) Whoever you think about when you come.  (4) You will remain in love with best (overall, in all categories) you ever met till better comes along.  (5) Infatuation.  Can you love someone without really knowing all about them?  Can you be in love with just one aspect of a person?  Do we ever really know anyone?  ---  10/15/1994


Sociology, sexuality, love.  ---  What is love?  Billions of relationships.  Zillions of ideas of what they are about.  Zillions of experiences and definitions of what love is.  And these relationships and experiences and ideas change with every moment and every encounter.  ---  12/30/1992


Sociology, sexuality, love.  ---  When is a love relationship officially over?  When has a couple officially broken up?  When all the attraction is gone.  When all the repulsion is gone.  When all the joy is gone.  When all the anger is gone.  When all the feelings have cooled.  Cool over.  Calm done.  Exhausted.  ---  8/19/2004


Sociology, sexuality, love.  ---  Why is love/sex boring?  Because people are boring.  Because sex is boring.  Because the emotion of love is boring.  ---  8/15/2005


Sociology, sexuality, love.  ---  Why people like each other.  For all areas of life, and all personality traits.  Your preferences, likes and dislikes.  How important it is to you (very, not much, etc.).  How wide a range of variation is acceptable to you.  ---  12/30/1992


Sociology, sexuality, love.  ---  You can love more than one person at a time.  You can love whoever is lovable.  ---  8/9/1998


Sociology, sexuality, love.  ---  Young love: Fun, energy, optimism, and idealism.  ---  7/9/1998




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Paul Nervy Notes. Copyright 1988-2007 by Paul Nervy.