Like, Lust and Love

I find myself quoting a guy I despise, well despise is a bit of a harsh word, I don't particularly despise him, I despise the circumstances through which we came to meet.  Truth be told I don't know that much about him through firsthand experience, all I know of him I have learned through others, and as age will often teach, the opinions of others, more often than not, will be warped.

Anyway this is beside the point.  When I first met him in person it was in London and we spoke of many things, but one thing in particular stuck with me for some time and that was his philosophy of the three L's.  Like, Lust and Love.  He said that everyone will meet three people in their life, three separate people.  One will be their first like, one their first lust and one their first love.  The ideal order being Like, Lust then Love although not necessarily in that order.

Your first like you may be any age and you may not fully understand it when it happens.  To like, does not imply any degree of attraction.  To like someone is to form a connection with them, a desire to be near them and to be their friend.  I experienced my first like when I was barely a teenager and in many ways I still like him, even though we don't speak any more.

Your first lust will be the first person you develop true sexual feelings of attraction for.  This may be someone in your life or it could be a celebrity or anyone really.  My first lust was a guy in my class.  That eventually ran its course though, as all lust it seems will run its course, either dying of its own accord or developing into something more.

Finally your first love is the first person you truly fall for.  On this final one I could write a book and I don't particularly feel like sharing my feelings on this matter right now as it would be a case of endless repetition. 

So we have our three L's.  As I said before and as He said too, they will be three separate people.  You may experience all three with people but in terms of who will hold the title of first, only one title of each can be held by any one person, reason being if you are with someone, only one of these desires should ultimately define your relationship.  You can lust after the one you love, but love trumps lust, they hold the title of love and so on.

So what is the point of all this?  Well the point is to ask yourself a few questions, namely for each of the above who was your first and most importantly can you tell the difference?

Some experience their first like, and mistake it for love or lust and pursue that person that leads to things like the 40 year old married guy with 2 kids who is a repressed homosexual because he mistook like for lust, only to finally experience his first lust which then causes his world to tumble down and that of all around him.

Then there is the person who experiences their first like, then they experience their first lust and mistake lust for love.  They pursue their lust and end up married, and several years down the line they are not happy and both know it was a mistake but refuse to admit it to one another or worse still [in my eyes] they have an open relationship as they hold on to that last bastion of pride that insists in their mind that they were not wrong that they really loved the other person and that they just need to have different sexual partners.

Then we have the ideal, the person who has experienced their first like, known what it is to like someone and be liked.  They have experienced their first lust, known what it is to lust after someone and be lust after themselves.  They have experienced their first love, and maybe they end up being with their first love, maybe they spend the rest of their lives together or maybe they end up with their second or their third or whatever.

The reality though is that all of the above is opinion it's not fact, it will make a lot of sense to some people and it will be complete bullshit to others.  Wherever you fall on your judgement of all that is written here I still ask of you the same questions, who was the first person you liked, the first you lust after and the first you loved?  Where they different people or did you only have one?  Most importantly, can you tell the difference?  Not just in hindsight but in the moment when you feel these feelings can you tell which is which?