The companionship you feel with your friends is love. Love IS broad, simply because its so abstract.

i disagree... just because love is an abstract does not mean that the kinship i feel with friends and family is love... as i said... love is not like...

But your family even? Parents?

I gotta say feared coz you always hurt the one you love!!

An god knows that's true!!

i know it sounds harsh and perhaps even unnatural by today's ACCEPTED ideas of love... but i like my parents, that much is certain... as far as love goes, that takes much deliberation... as such i cannot say that i love them...

i do? well, of course i do... i said it, didn't i?

Yeah, I would have to agree with both errantrogue and Pugh on this one.

I'm not even saying at present. You NEVER did?

I think that folks who choose fear because love hurts are stupid little wussies that need to grow the hell up.

Yes, love can hurt...but if its true then its beautiful.

It is better to be loved because you feel beautiful, you aren't feared, your heart is open, and you are happier. People who choose being feared over being loved are just too afraid of opening up. I don't open up easily myself, but I don't close myself off to the point of choosing being feared over being loved. Fear leads to hate, and if everyone chose fear over love, this world would be even shittier than it already is.

oh sure, it is better to be loved, yet when that love is lost (as it is for me at the moment) some of the stongest waves of depression kick in, alcoholism becomes intensified, suicide becomes an idea, becoming anti-social seems friendlier, et cetera.....but once feared, always feared, and though this too might have its collection of depression, then again it might not, i would assume that the depression after losing love is by-far one of the worst......therefore; a;though love is generally considered better, perhaps fear might be able to win won over love?

You think of love in the romantic sense...

The question deals with all forms of love....friendship, partnership, not just on a serious relationship level...

Its pretty obvious by the results of this, after it being up for so long, that love has won out...

that premise is far too dependent on what my definitions of love have been over time and if i felt them for my parents... as such the moment at hand is all that is important...

Still, the question doesn't deal with specific types.

Would you rather be feared by the masses or loved by the masses?

Fear or respect, I guess is the general sense of it. The respect type of love...the type of love that would be held for a king or something way back in the day...reverence and respect.

Two things are obvious, here.

1.) Love, and the ideas behind it, is not something that all the members of this forum can find one definition for.

2.) For some, the benefits of being loved may not be worth the pain that could result from that love somehow being lost. They're fragile individuals, sure, but that's their choice.

*shrug* Number 2 goes hand in hand with one...if they could think of more love than just romantic, then there wouldn't be that problem.

hehe... ever read The Prince by Machiavelli?

No, I haven't. If you wanted to give me the idea of it, though, I'm sure I could relate it to something else.

mmm, i beleive it went something to the effect of 'to be a good ruler one must be dually ruthless and kind, inspiring their love and their fear'