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Love... the single most painful thing on the planet. People always say this and you never believe them until it happens. You meet someone and suddenly the next couple of years are an endless blur of happiness and sadness, and then a couple of months of excruicating pain before your partner becomes just another face on the bus or on the street. If it's true love, though, the pain never really goes...

And yes, that was out of experience. And no one may say: "You're too young for love", because that's a lie. You're never too old or young.

Unrequited love is not love - it is attraction, affection and possibly stalking.
However, Lumanny, eventually someone will look at you from another angle and say: Hang on, he's actually really nice. I like him.

And then you'll've hit the jackpot. wink

This may be the Community Schmooze's longest post, not counting Divash. whee

Lust is the mind's way of saying: I need a partner. You find (or at least I do) that a girl/boyfriend or a spouse will remove lust. Love is a whole other kettle of fish. This is how I explain why some married couples stop having sex.

In lust? No. Not a hope in hell, unless they both lust after each other, in which case the relationship will last less than a year before failing.

In love, the bond can be severed, but can also be eternal.

Depending on the definition of lust, no, it doesn't always go away after one is married. The problem with "lust" as popularly defined is that it is only physical: you're interested in the body, but not in the mind, heart, soul that live within the body.

But if lust is defined as a physical attraction/desire for someone, then it can also be contained by, and subservient to, one's emotional and spiritual attraction. In that context, then it is to be devoutly hoped that this attraction doesn't go away after marriage. In fact, the absence of it is considered cause for concern within a halachic marriage. Having marital relations is considered a foretaste of heaven, even on par with the other "foretaste of heaven," Shabbat. To make love with one's spouse on Shabbat, indeed, is considered a special blessing.

Judaism does not permit us to vulgarize our sexuality as human beings. However, it also does not demand or permit that we negate it or ignore it. We are meant to bring this desire into the control of our yetzeir ha-tov (good inclination) rather than leave it to our hetzeir ha-ra (evil inclination). It's exactly like making a blessing before eating kosher food: it takes a basic need (sustenance; intimacy) and elevates it to a holy act.

If you read the post above yours, then you know what my experience has taught me.