This was the question with the highest amount of responses and also the most diverse opinions I have encountered. When it comes to my questions I usually have a general sense of how society and my informants will react to them and I strive to understand why they did not pick the other answer but when it comes to love, people interpret things based on their experiences and that’s make this so intriguing. I think to truly understand the depth of this question, one must define what love is or how love is given out which are two very difficult tasks but based off of that is how my informants formed their answers. Do you believe that you chose who you love or that you love can be given out and taken back at will? These are things to consider while attempting to answer this question.
“People are in our lives for different reasons kinda like that 80/20 thing. It’s always going to be something they’re missing that you feel like someone else has.”
-Snapchat Follower
A very famous saying describes the quote to the left, “No one is perfect”. I interpreted this quote by one my informants saying that sometimes love follows the 80/20 rule. That you may only find 80% of what you thought you desired but it does not matter because the love is strong enough to overcome but that raises the question of what happens when someone else presents the things that the other 20% contains? This does not mean the second person is 100%, this just means they are showing you another aspect of your love you have not seen before. This particular informant believes that one can be in love with two people at once and she say also states it is a terrible feeling. This idea is presented by a quote another informant stated, “Both may do something that you like, one more than the other but still both may benefit you in great ways” saying you could be in love with two people for two different reasons. You can love them differently but with the same amount of passion.
“To truly be in love and to truly care, there is no capacity for more than one… being in love you give your all into that person being in love is synergy. It’s synchronization.
-Snapchat Follower”
Another informant stated that love is just not a feeling but it is also an action and we do not have the capacity to give our full love to two people simultaneously. We may have that feeling arise but you will always love one person more than the other, and that is who you are truly in love according to her. As she describes it, you have to be willing to give your full self to another to be in love because there needs to be pure synergy between the both of you and of course you cannot spread yourself among two people to achieve that.
For me, this is a difficult question because I have conflicting philosophies. I use to believe and still kind of do that there is a soulmate for everyone out there but as I went through experiences in life a new quote stuck in my mind, “There’s multiple people out there for everyone”. And that was something that I always pondered. If another man could contain the same characteristics that you love me for, could you not also love him? And I understand that just because another man is funny does not mean you will fall in love with him, but what if he contained the same intellectual properties that allowed me to penetrate your mind… what if you met him first, would things be different? But one could argue that if the love between you and I did not last then maybe we were not soulmates to begin with, and now you see why I have conflicting philosophies. But I realized that just because you fall in love with someone throughout your lifetime does not denote them as your soulmate because your journey to find love may not end there. So to conclude, I think you can love two people at once but eventually you will end up with the one you share the most love with. What are your thoughts, and of course thank you for your opinion.
Photographer: Crystal Smith. Find more of her work at Cvptureimages
