Poll: Most interesting emotion: Fear vs love

[Doclector]

This arised from a slightly drunken conversation with my flatmates. I expressed my displeasure at the amount of songs about that...L word, and it branched into a conversation about interesting emotions.

I said that fear was more interesting. I've always said, discover what a man is afraid of, and you discover a door into every other part of their personality.

However, they said that about love, but I disagree. If someone loves blondes, why would that tell me anything about them. Love is incredibly simple to me. Someone wants to sleep with someone else, if the feeling's mutual, they stay together until one of them wants to sleep with someone else, then that person will leave.

And what can you do to a man once you find out what they love? Remove it from their life? Fear's more direct. You can break a man simply by talking too much about what they're truly afraid of.

So, what do you think? Remember, this is about what's more interesting. Not what's better, although I'd still say fear. The problems of fear are much easier and more satisfying to overcome, and the ups are far more valuable; only when we're truly scared, do we know who we truly are.

Feel free to mention another emotion if you're more interested in that, though.

EDIT: I feel the need to address a few things that keep popping up.

"You know nothing about love". I'm not that experienced, but I have felt it. I consider it...inconvenient to feel again. In my experience, people glorifying lust=love. There may be more elements to a relationship, but lust is the centre. No lust, no love. No one ever f***ed anyone for sense of humour. And besides, what if I were to tell you that you know nothing of real fear? Now that, I know. I lived a nightmare for several years, and was a slave to my fear of it happening again for several more. So I have a very intimate knowledge of fear.

"Fear is simple/animals feel fear". Not real fear. Not psychological fear that doesn't go for your instinctive fear of say, sharp objects, but goes for your biggest psychological weak spots.

Also, people voting for other; It's far more interesting to tell us what you're interested in.

 

[Marter]

You are drastically simplifying love.

Anyway, I think love is more interesting just because of how drastically different it can be for each person. Fear is more universal in my eyes; almost everyone will fear a train heading straight for them, but only a select group will love grasshoppers, for example.

Also, what about loving fear? Or fearing love?

 

[Luke5515]

I think love is more interesting. Animals have evolved to fear certain things, because that could mean the end for them, but where did love come from? What caused this emotion that is so powerful, yet seemingly unnecessary, to come into existance?

 

[werty10089]

I hypothesize that while most people are going to say that love is the most telling of a person's character, the best answer would be fear. Not that it is fear that defines people, but their lack of fear in certain circumstances that speaks the most about their inner personality. It tells more about someone willing to go through pain and anguish for what they feel is right, then just simply loving what they want to love.

 

[Andothul]

Fear is simple, easy to define and understand. Love is the opposite.

Love wins

 

[Crazy]

Love creates and destroys fear, fear destroys love.

 

[monkey_man]

If you base love on "I'd tap that" you aren't doing it right man. even describing it as an obsession would be more accurate. It's the most powerful thing I've ever felt, and the most devastating to lose. Hell, people have killed themselves because they lost loved ones. how's that not powerful? Or interesting WHY it's so powerful?
Gottam go with love man.

 

[Doclector]

You are drastically simplifying love.

Anyway, I think love is more interesting just because of how drastically different it can be for each person. Fear is more universal in my eyes; almost everyone will fear a train heading straight for them, but only a select group will love grasshoppers, for example.

Also, what about loving fear? Or fearing love?

Ah, but that's what I call a physical fear. We are instinctically afraid of the aforementioned train, or anything that can cause us pain or death. Fear of enclosed spaces, or fear of abandonement, or fear of crowds, these are the truly interesting things, because people have them for all kinds of reasons.

And as for fearing love and loving fear, well, good question. I know I love to create fear, and in many ways, I love to be afraid. Horror was, funnily enough, my safe place as a child. Being scared of the monsters, zombies, and ghouls was far preferable to the all too real things I had to fear, and as such, a good scary movie proves strangely comforting to me. But again, would that not be more about fear than love? Running to one fear because you cannot face another?

 

[Kolby Jack]

I agree that too many songs are about love, but I can't say I'd enjoy songs about fear either.

And I disagree about either fear or love being able to tell you about someone. If you know what they love or what they're afraid of, that's all you know. To know someone takes much more than just those.

 

[Last Hugh Alive]

I'd say love as well. Basic human emotions like fear and anger are, while interesting to explore in their own way, are universal, common and easier to achieve. Real, actual love, however, is usually out of one's control, you can't identify the exact reason for your attraction and can be much less logical, it can take you to new places emotionally and change the way you are and what you value.

I think fear is extremely interesting, but is far too easy to inspire compared to love.

 

[Doclector]

Fear is simple, easy to define and understand. Love is the opposite.

Love wins

Oh, on the contrary. Nothing is more complex than the workings of true fear. Pulling the strings, pushing someone's personal emotional panic buttons, it's fascinating.

And another thing. You can escape love. You can teach yourself not to feel it, you can be traumatised out of feeling it, Some claim never to have felt it in the first place. Not quite sure on that, but still...You can face your fears a hundred times, you may be the bravest person in the world, but fear will always come back.

And you can hide love. Hell, that's the problem most people have, isn't it? The advice forum would be a much emptier place if people could tell when they loved each other. You can't hide when you're truly afraid. Not from me at least.

 

[violinist1129]

Even the fact that it is easy to create fear in another makes it less interesting than love.

No, love is not just the desire to bone either.

 

[WhyBotherToTry]

I think love is the more interesting of the two. There are reasons as to why we fear certain things, but love is much less straightforward. Fear evolved out of the need to survive but love would appear to serve no purpose, as man's early ancestors would have been polygamous, and a desire to be with one person alone goes against that. I think it's the more interesting of the two for that.

 

[Henkie36]

Love will make a man do everything, but fear reveals his true colors. So, want to get to know your friends? Don't give them a hug, just point a gun at them.

 

[Revolutionary]

I think Love is so interesting because it can be both a positive and a negative (Painful) experience.

 

[Xangba]

There's a difference between love and lust, which seems to be your idea of "love." And to comment on the "going through pain and anguish" thing mentioned earlier, that's not out of fear. Fear is what makes you not want to do those things, not what makes you overcome them.

 

[Doclector]

Even the fact that it is easy to create fear in another makes it less interesting than love.

No, love is not just the desire to bone either.

You're thinking of the wrong kind of fear. I'm afraid of spiders in that way. It has no real bearing on anything, they just creep me out. Now, why I'm afraid of crowds, the fears that have a psychological reason that is more often than not different for everyone, that is the interesting fears. That's true fear.

 

[weker]

Easy love. Fear just tends to be trying to survive, which are basically instincts, only thing that tends to make it special is how horror movies effect people and scary stories and so on. Love was just the emotion made to encourage to make us do the no under pants dance for each other, now it's allot allot more, as the majority of people don't fully base their love on physical attraction alone, and when personality is what your going on, why don't you just have them as a friend.
All together, fear is an interesting emotion but has developed to the extent that love has in modern society.