'In love' with someone new every month

[Laliophobic]

And if there's already a topic like this that I missed, please delete D:
But moving along...
You all know someone like that. Don't deny it! Those friends who call you up about their newest love or MSN buddies with their signature raving about someone different each time they log in. Yep. You all know someone like that. My question is: Why?
I personally have tons of friends who do this. One month/week/day they're all about that one special person, that person who they're madly in love with and would do anything for. Then they get in one little fight...'Oh, I never liked them. They pissed me off all the time. I totally love [enter name here] now <3! We'll stay together forever!' Sure you will. Until next month.
I'm not judging anyone or trying to say what they're doing is wrong. But why throw around the term 'love' so casually? Don't get me wrong, I don't mean simply dating someone different, I mean saying you're in love with them. If you were in love with someone, wouldn't you wait more than a week or two before moving on? Why is it people think it's love after the first date/IM conversation? Thoughts/oppinions/watch as drama ensues?

[Matt Cruea]

There are two possible reasons:

1. Your friends are all too young to understand what "love" is and identify completely different feelings with "love."

2. Your friends are, like us, from Georgia and thus, unlike myself, quite stupid.

[Jaela]

Uh... *cough, shuffle feet* That's me. Reporting for duty.

I guess I don't use the word "love" that often, but I've(almost) always had someone to be crazy about, and things happen, so I've been crazy about quiiiite a lot of different people.
The truth is that relationships are just COMPLICATED. There's always a unique story behind what exactly happened, so there's no easy explanation like "She jumps from guy to guy because she's insecure/doesn't have a good relationship with her father/has repressed feelings of being unloved/whatever".

To give an idea of what I mean, here's some MAJOR self-disclosure. I'm finally comfortable talking about this stuff, I guess. o.o;; Keep in mind these will just be the most consequential guys. Like the ones I actually dated, basically. The myriad crushes in-between will go unmentioned. There's a LOT of those.

I was crazy about my first boyfriend, then he showed his true colors and turned out to be a total pervert. That lasted a little over a week. In that short time, he managed to scar me for life and steal my first kiss. Not necessarily in that order.
I had a passing crush on a younger guy just 'cause he was cute. I forgot about him pretty quickly after I got into high school.
I was crazy about the hottest guy in school freshman year(he was a junior), and when he reciprocated my feelings we started spending more time together(and had a summer romance, I guess), I found out he was kind of nuts. Like, he was obsessed with The Communist Manifesto and Star Trek, and he always wanted to talk about what comic book characters were secretly gay. The first time I tried to break up with him, he(somehow) convinced me to give him another chance. The second time he showed up at my house with a knife. "Look what I got at Cabella's! Isn't this cool?!" O.o creepy. In the end, my dad had to break up with him for me.
I told everyone I was crazy about this one guy in my year after that until I realized that my feelings for him were more sibling-ish.
Then I fell in love with his brother. This time, I actually was in love. We dated for nine months before he left me for another girl.
I dated that younger guy I had a crush on in middle school for three or four months, mainly trying to act on any vaguely romantic feelings I had, since the the being-dumped-for-another-girl-by-my-first-love thing left me pretty numb for a long time.
Broke up with Mr. Three-or-Four-Months. For a lot of reasons, I guess. My parents hated him, I was(and still am) in a confusing place spiritually, it wasn't the same as my first love(which is to say, I wasn't in love this time).
Am now totally crazy about, and possibly in love with, another guy. This time someone I've been friends with for a long time.
I don't plan to act on my feelings until I graduate, because I've discovered that dating(or at least having serious relationships) in high school is mostly stupid. So you could say I'm trying to break out of this pattern.
But yeah, some insight of a girl who runs from one guy to the next. I think it's mainly that I started dating too early in my life(I was thirteen, first bf was a sophomore) and it kind of caught me up in a perpetual state of inexperience for a while, if that makes sense.
But yeah, like I said, there's no easy, one-size-fits-all answer. Each scenario has its own explanation.


-Jaela

[LordFuzzywig]

This kind of thing is normally best explained by lack of experience and age. It's very frequent in junior-high and high-school. The really unfortunate part is that that kind of person typically ignores any advice and ends up making some really poor decisions that they regret later. You can't convince someone that they don't know what they're talking about until they come to the realisation themselves... It's just one of those things you have to let people learn on their own and hope they don't do anything stupid.

Oh well.~

[Bivinz]

Then again, there are those few people with the capacity to love more than one person at a time. However I don't believe those are the people in question >.>

If anything I believe it's the way that the media has portrayed love and true love. Whether it be in movies, tv, reality shows <.<, games, anime, books, romance books in particular >.>, and whatnot, love becomes a distorted facade of what it truly is.

In most of anything shown in the media (besides the lifetime channel) love comes easy, fast, and if you don't like the guy/girl you're with ~move on to another one.

Happy endings (no not that kind) have been taught to children for ages (You can thank disney for that >.>) and the notion that you can find someone you love in a day and immediately live together forever and be happy is what these "immature" people grew up with.

Basically what I'm saying is that through outside sources, love in people's minds have been distored to something far more superficial and less worthwhile >.> I believe that's one of the reasons the young'ns can throw around the word "love" so easily.

Random Disney Classic

"I'm a troubled orhpan with a sad past."

"I'm a rich princess."

"Hi"

"hi"

"..."

"..."

"let's get married!"

"I love you!"

~~~~~

The end. "..." represents roughly 3 days.

[Luchia]

Love...a very strong word...I hate it XD! Cues it can just flip back around and hit you right in the face! And it hurts!
I have only had one boyfriend in my life (still dating him )

I met him in my last year of Elementary school (Grade 8 here) and when I saw him and talked to him I started to like him as a friend. Until I realized I actually liked him MORE than I thought I did...
The months of the school year went on and I was scared he never felt the same towards me just as friends he would like me. So on Graduation; I confessed to him saying I liked him for the longest time. and ran off ( Me being stupid XD! ) I sat in the bathroom for a couple minutes and then one of my friends knocked on the stall I was in holding back tears. She told me he wanted to talk to me in my head I was like "Oh god! What have I done!?!" xD! The next thing I know we were alone and he huged me I WAS SHOCKED! Then he told me he liked me to he liked me for a long time like me; just scared of rejection or losing a friendship ^^; .

Things lead to another we went on our first "date" XD Movie and stuff...I was just so scared to be around him xD! I stayed like 5 feet away from him while we walked. We talked for a bit and I still liked him. Then when school started up again he asked me to be his girlfriend...took me a whole 5 days to say yes cues I have never in my WHOLE LIFE had anyone like me or was planing on having a boyfriend in high school xD!

It will be 1 year in the next week or so :3 and I am now just head over heels in love with him and he loves me the same way. He is just the best thing that has ever happened to me. Sadly he moved away the other day to Halifax, Nova Scotia and now I need a job to pay for a ticket to see him :3 and him the sameXD! But since I love him so much I will go to the ends of the earth for him and I bet he would do the same for me.

Um....let me think...my best friend from Elementary school (Now we both go to different High schools) but in Grade 8 she dated about 3 guys ... and now in High school I think she went through *counts* 8; maybe? And said she loved them...riiigiht =_=

My mother was the same when she was a teen.......I dont know HOW many boyfriends she had! there was like 6 when she was a teen; then my half older sisters father... then my father...then a guy she worked with, then some other guy, then my moms friends friend and now a DJ from Rock 95! -_-

Am I the only one out of my friends to ACTUALLY keep a relationship? XD! But I dont think I will love anyone as much as I love my boyfriend <3 (He is TOTALLY gonna read this when he gets internet cues hes on Vaa XD)

[S h u d o - R a n m a r u]

I think, the reasons depend more upon the situation and person. It can be because of a lot of things, insecurity, etc, as well as some of the things previously mentioned. Although I've never been as boy-crazy as the type of person you've described in your post, I can sort of relate. I have rarely, in my entire life, gone through a period of time where I wasn't crushing on someone, or 'in love' with another. During the periods where I haven't had someone to crush on I felt like something was wrong or missing, and I felt empty. I felt as though I wasn't normal because I didn't have a guy to talk about like the rest of my friends, which looking back on it, was just silly.

I've had nothing but bad experiences with guys until like, six months ago. But I can say that jumping from guy to guy can ease disappointments, regrets or pain that might have been caused from the previous guy. [Or rather, mask it for awhile] It's also easier to get over someone if you have someone else since it can distract your attention and mind from the previous let down.

By all means I'm not encouraging this kind of behavior, since it can become unhealthy and ridiculous, I'm just offering another possible reason or point of view. Despite my previous years of 'crush jumping', having my heart broken on more than one occasion and having my love thrown back in my face, I've only ever had one boyfriend, and I'm still with him. [just for some clarification]

I do know people like you've mentioned though and as I said earlier, the reasons can vary based on situation and personality. <3

[mongtsatsa]

I think that the word 'love' is tossed around way to casually these days. The word itself is a strong term that I don't think should be used that easily unless you really, really mean it. The same things that you describe happen in my school a lot, when people just hook up randomly and then send meaningless text messages to each other saying I love you Or stuff like that and then break up the next week. The shortest relationship I've heard of here is three hours, for God's sake.

I don't mind too much if they're going to be dating different people every month; it's not the best choice but it is their life. But I personally think that their rendition of 'love' is a lot different than what it really is, so at the very least use a different word. 'Crush' may sound harsh to some people, but it's more accurate in my opinion.

...I'm a bit of an idiot in the relationships department, so if I'm speaking gibberish, forgive me. XD

[AmyAnn]

I have to agree with mongtsatsa about love being too commonly used and in the wrong way. I, myself, find it extremely difficult to say "love" even to my family members. I've only ever said it to one person and meant it in that way and we're happily together right now. I know ALOT of people who are always switching between people and I think it's idiotic, not in a nasty way though.

Love is eternal, not liking someone for two minutes and then moving on to someone new.

[ig.]

Comically, we are all afraid to be alone.