Someone may Love You but/and not Like You
It’s strange, but it’s true. Simple things are magical for many reasons. When you like someone, for example, you’re bound to adhere to the preliminary traits of what drove the likeness. From treating them as mere strangers with basic human relatability, to other “little” (except not-so-little) characteristics to show you like them. You smile at them, tell them the truth, welcome their energy, invite them out, and exchange contacts. This stage may proceed to a full-blown friendship from either a one-off or multiple encounters after that. This may explain why a lot of committed relationships require that they form a friendship or like each other first.
To love someone, you must first like them
Friendship and likeness go hand-in-hand. The simplicity of appreciating and treating someone kindly and nicely without any strings attached goes a very long way in how further relationships are formed. The likeness is the bedrock of every relationship. To love someone, you must first like them. Liking them entails acknowledging them beyond just normal human niceties.
As such, loving someone should be supposedly stronger, better, and higher. Oftentimes, the reverse is the case. Loving someone can miss out on a lot of basic essential things. Some people in certain kinds of relationships often get carried away with the big stuff that they start to perform the love and forget to show it.
For example: your family dynamics may include a parent who never forgets to tell you “I love you” after a phone call, but invalidates your feelings.
Another instance explains where a romantic partner may fill your pockets with money and never deem it fit to check up on you and genuinely be present.
These scenarios are ambiguous, however, it does not leave out the suggestive fact that capitalizing on love, can give off a dislike undertone to it.
People who love should listen, care, validate, be present, forgive, and then love. I’m sure there are more qualities to loving someone, but if we could just keep it simple, it becomes easier to find and exercise. What sets love apart from likeness is the intention to act on that pure likeness and take the relationship further than where it is. And it takes two to tango.
There is no singularity in a relationship, there’s more of combined efforts.
It’s not so hard, yet loving someone is the hardest thing because of the connotations and expectations we have of it. But imagine we could love as is, rather than with expectations. Again, not expecting anything from someone you love, isn’t enough on its own to show you love a person. You can expect what you intend to be or can give. For example: you can nurture a person to be more affectionate if you’re willing to be just that and show it. Therefore, it’s not love when it’s just one-sided. There’s no singularity in relationships, there’s more of combined efforts.
You can expect what you intend to be or can give.
This example is what makes liking someone more endearing because, with the likeness, there are no expectations, rules, or complexities. Just pure likeness. There is forgiveness when a mistake arises, but there’s the human acknowledgment of mistakes or misdoings from one person to another.
Likeness can give off ordinary energy, but it is an extraordinary feat to like and be liked. No matter how a person or thing looks, you’re drawn to it before unraveling its true nature. At times you are stuck with it after getting to the core of it, due to this innate attraction.
I think this is what makes likeness precede love.
To recapitulate:
Love can be a sham, but when truly felt and exercised supersedes likeness. Someone who loves you shouldn’t make you feel tolerated, unseen, unheard, or a poorer lower version of you. Love should empower you, enhance your being, and leave you better, not coerced. If not, return to the basis of your relationship and determine if there could still be a form of likeness or friendship there as that’s the foundation. If there’s none, it’s time to return to ground zero and build right back up, or back out – because what’s not love cannot feel like it. It’s either likeness or love and love “should” be better. Likeness/friendship with one another remains the best.
Thanks for taking the time to read