Opinion Needed on Love

[Prinky Doodsie]

How true is the quote, "If you love someone, set them free. If they come back, they’re yours; if they don’t, they never were."?

[Puupi]

Ask him.

[Rexosaurus]

It depends on the circumstances and the exact situation that you're in, like most things in life imo.

You'd have to either be psychic or really know how the other person thinks to truly know whether they want you to chase after them or give them some breathing room. Just be careful with the former option, often times it leads to driving that person away from you. I believe that's why the saying you're referring to is a fairly common one.

EDIT: Yeah also that ^ obviously, forcing someone is a no go.

[Kalis]

Ask him.

The two most famous Austrians of the last 100 years have been him and Hitler. Not a great record.

[Independent voter]

How would you set them free? Let them sleep around like in an open relationship? Breakup with them? Tell them to GTFO?

[XDurionX]

[Ghostpanther]

It is a sound advice. You don't want to force someone to love you. That kind of love isn't worth it.

This. You really can not force someone to love you anyways. All you get is a fake love. It appears to be love, but has no substance when tested. When you no longer have anything to offer to a person and they stick with you, that is the real test of love. You see this in cases where a loved one is injured bad enough they are crippled and the other person sticks with them anyway.

[zlygork]

I believe if you truly love someone you need to put an effort, communicate with them and see what the problem is, what can be done, etc. "set them free" sounds to me like "let them sleep around till they get bored of it"
If a full pause for some bullshit contemplation is required, I think that the relationship is likely over even if neither of you realizes,

[Puupi]

The two most famous Austrians of the last 100 years have been him and Hitler. Not a great record.

Not true!

[Deleted]

It is fairly true. A lot of people don't really know how much they love or don't love a person, until they get to spend prolonged periods without them.

I mean heck, with the amount of divorces these days, and the number of people that actually end up saying that they feel like it was a mistake, I think it is safe to say that there is some merit to the saying.

[Kalis]

Not true!

He was an android sent from the future to destroy the last chance of humanity. Hardly a good guy.

[Deleted]

How true is the quote, "If you love someone, set them free. If they come back, they’re yours; if they don’t, they never were."?

What has love to do with possession? Looks like some antique quote.

[meheez]

It depends on who you are and how you feel as with anything. Its a bit foolish to say that love is not needy or about letting other person go. When you have feelings you dont think in such ways, sometimes you do lose your head. But one thing i can say, people want to feel safe, thus excessive chasing is never a good thing.

[Mistame]

If someone wants to go, letting them go is the only rational and decent thing to do. "Love" is mostly bullshit.

[Louisa Bannon]

"If you love something, set it free. If it comes back, it's yours. If it doesn't, it never was."

It's actually unknown who made something like this statement for the first time and there are variants of it too. That's the one I know from a really long time ago and it's also the one I most prefer. The meaning of the quote is fairly obvious to my mind: it's about your chosen means of social exchange.

Will you control relationships with others through dominance, manipulation, wealth, power, or fame?
Will you submit yourself to others and be used by them?
Will you deal with others in a constantly evolving exchange of feelings, resources, sexual favors, or whatever is of value between apparent equals?

I mainly do the last. My ethic is easily stated as: I serve those that also serve me. I see it as a level field predicated on quid pro quo exchanges. People that want to play games, manipulate, attempt dominance or submission, etc. will generally find that I can't be engaged in that way as I almost never care about the carrot at the end of the stick.

So how do I maintain the relationships that are important to me? I do what is claimed of Father Brown in Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited:
"I caught him...with an unseen hook and an invisible line which is long enough to let him wander to the ends of the world and still to bring him back with a twitch upon the thread."

The unseen thread is braided from love, generosity, and fairness.

Those that return do so because they want to.

[Raakel]

I'd say it the other way around:

"If you love something go away. If it follows you because it wants to it's still not yours... bla bla"

Don't be desperate and chase after her / him - that makes you totally unattractive in a break up szenario.

Be strong and show off what a great person you are on your own.

[Deleted]

What does it even mean, set them free? We're all free to do whatever we want already, and no amount of 'permission' or lack thereof from our partner can change that. It's just bullshit to give us the illusion that we have any kind of say over the course of our love life.

[Evil Midnight Bomber]

He was an android sent from the future to destroy the last chance of humanity. Hardly a good guy.

He was also an android sent from the future to save the last chance of humanity. 3 times.

[Deleted]

How true is the quote, "If you love someone, set them free. If they come back, they’re yours; if they don’t, they never were."?

really flawed. not everyone experiences love the same.
for example my ex girl friend, broke up with her because she got really quite, thought she wasn't into me anymore.
turns out she was trying to reign because she was afraid i'd over react if she said i love you every day and constantly snuggle me.
said crazy clinginess then erupted over my car in the form of a pretty well worded threatening poem.
she now has a restraining order.

point is letting her go drove her insane and she wants to murder me.
Although she was still technically mine, i just didn't want her anymore after she got weird.

[turboether]

It is clearly overly romanticised. It assumes ideal principled people immune to temptation. A counter term would be 'give people an inch and they run a mile.' Love as a term is too complicated to be explained in a coin of phrase, let alone what constitutes a successful relationship structure that springs from such a reduction.