Frank, you're just an asshole.

For reference: G is a year into the unflattering throes of getting dumped by a guy he'd gone out with for three or four months and fallen madly in love with. Also, I saw "her" from a distance for the second time since it ended about thirty minutes before this conversation took place. Other than (obviously) the anonymization, this hasn't been altered from the chat we had earlier this evening. I'm also going to include this link to a blog post by a mutual friend that we had both read before this conversation.

G: I had a conversation with T about you

  and she helped me understand why you were so mad at me.

  You and I have completely different ideas of what love is.

me: oh? which time being mad at you?

G: Most recent

  when I said you never loved her.

me: it was more silly than offensive. you couldnt know

G: Well, I don't think you loved her.

  But that's because of what I mean by love.

  I think it's unfathomable to leave someone if you love them.

  So like for comparison / my frame of reference.

  I thought I had contracted HIV and was going to die.

me: is it unfathomable to love someone who you can't be happy with?

G: My first thought was not "oh shit, my life expectancy"

  it was "oh no, I'll need to stay away from Sean forever to keep him safe."

  it turns out I didn't get HIV (most likely).

  but my thoughts were about the other person's well being

me: damned false negatives

G: above my own life

  and like

  for me

  that's a minimum requisite for love

  is that you have to care more about them than yourself

  and that doesn't seem compatible with the narrative you told me about your breakup.

    I think that loving someone (or something) in the conversational usage is different, it just means to be deeply grateful for their presence in your life

  but to be in love with someone, to love someone (romantically), means that you are completely given over to that person.

  that nothing in your life is as important as preserving their happiness

me: link

G: so that still doesn't see the semantic difference

  it says people shouldn't use it casually

  but there's a profound difference in the two meanings of love I laid out

  I don't think that post had that first meaning

  of thinking instinctively of her

  when harm was in your way

  rather than yourself

  not that you were in a life-threatening situation

  but like

  that reflex

  is a major part of love.

  as I understand it.

  and so given that, I don't understand how you could amicably end a relationship and call it love.

me: i guess this begs the question, by this definition are there people who are incapable of love?

G: yes.

me: well then it's just another kind of elitism

G: and I think that Sean, the guy I loved, is one of those people, unfortunately.

  But maybe not.

  I think it's for the best that he ended it, because now he has the chance to experience that with someone if I couldn't be the one he could experience it with.

me: that sounds like progress

G: no, I really don't think it's a superiority thing Frank

  I just think it's different.

  I think it's rare, and painful, and I basically lost the will to live (not suicidal, but lost all ability to imagine a happy future) post breakup.

me: in that blog post i linked

G: it was shattering in a way nothing else has ever been.

me: you are among the "poets, panderers and theorists"

  he forgot an additional kind of person that falls there: fools

G: You're a windblown douchebag who doesn't listen.

  I'm telling you that there's an emotional tie that I don't think you understand

  and I think you're dismissive of that.

  And you should just listen a minute reserving judgment.

me: i thank fate that T is from such an intensely monogamous culture, because in that context it wont be pathological

  you're screwed, though

G: Frank, you're just an asshole. I'm done talking to you.

Guilty as charged. I laughed my head off when he signed off.