Caring for someone and being in love with someone or too very distinct different things. They are not always usually inclusive, though.
When you care for someone, you want to see them happy. You want to see them, succeed and thrive. You get excited for them when you see that twinkle in their eye. You want to celebrate all the good news, and be there for them during tough times.
In love with someone, you still want to see them happy. Do you want to see them succeed and thrive. Do you want to see that twinkle in their eye. Do you want to celebrate the good times and be there for the bad. The difference is, when you’re in love with someone, you want to be the reason.
Because these are so similar, I think they often get confused. If you’re lucky, you can truly experience both with the same person. However, I think quite often we automatically assume that the two go hand-in-hand, especially when we are in love.
I contend that you can be in love with someone while still not truly caring about them.
How is this possible?
If you’re in love with someone and they’re smiling, but you are not the reason that they are smiling – someone else is. Does that hurt your feelings? If there’s a new twinkle in their eye because someone else put it there, are you jealous and threatened?
I’m not saying that the presence of jealousy means you don’t truly care about the person. Jealousy is a very natural human emotion. But when you see the happiness of someone, you’re in love with, and recognize that that particular happiness has absolutely nothing to do with you, do you see that as a reflection on whether or not they love you?
Here’s an example… When I look at my wife, I know that I am in love with her. I want to hang the moon in the stars to make her smile. That smile simply lights me up. I also know that I truly care about her as well, because I have seen that smile generated by others. I have seen that twinkle in her eye that was not my doing. Every single time, it lights me up. I am not threatened by someone else making her soul sing, because I know that I do that too. It doesn’t make me question whether or not she loves or cares about me. Instead, I simply want to see more of it, whether by my hand, or the hands of those around me.
I think that becomes a true test. The way to know whether or not you care, for someone, are in love with someone, or both. Because if there, happiness, most rest with you, you can very well be in love with them, but not always truly care about them.
Sometimes being in love with someone means, you have to care more about them than you do yourself. Sure, you have to be able to get back out of a relationship in someway. You also have to be fed by the relationship. That said, we also must realized that sometimes we are not the entirety of that meal for them. If we’re more worried about how much they may be eating compared to what we imagine are the crumbs we may be getting, then perhaps we need to do a little bit more evaluation.
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