A Phenomenology of Love

By Manuel B. Dy

Introduction
What is love?
Many of us have the tendency to equate love with romance.
On the other hand, love is pictured many times as an act of possessing or being possessed by another
person. I love you has come to mean You are mine
For many young people, love has become synonymous with sex. This equation of love with sex has led to
the idea that friendship is not love. When two lovers break up, they settle for friendship as if friendship
were inferior to love.
According to Erich Fromm, the popular notion of love at present is falling in love. It implies that there is
only love when one is in loved. You have no love life is you are not in loved.
Fromm attributes this popular notion of love to three reasons:
1) the emphasis on being loved rather than on loving
2) the emphasis on the object loved rather than on love itself. People talk about ideal girl, knight in
shining armour, or prince charming but not so much about how to love this man/woman
3) the confusion between the infatuation and love
Our phenomenology of love must set aside first all the above preconceptions of love. Now, we must go
back to the original experience of love.


Loneliness and Love
The experience of love begins from the experience of loneliness. The experience of loneliness is basically
a human experience.
There comes a point to a human persons life when toys and food are no longer interesting. This is the
time when one becomes conscious of oneself and begins to ask the question about his identity. Along
with this experience is also the tendency of a person to seek out to other persons with the same identity
as his. They became his barkada.
Very often, however, this barkada does not fill in all the empty spaces of a persons life. Very seldom does
he find himself in a group who will take him for all that he is, different from the group. Until this equality will
mean oneness in difference, the person will remain lonely amidst a crowd.
In an attempt to conform to the group and hide ones individuality, his loneliness eventually expresses
itself as an experience of boredom.
To overcome this boredom and loneliness, the person may resort to drinks and drugs or any form of
heightened sensation as a temporary escape from reality.
Another resort to overcome the experience of loneliness is to keep oneself busy with creative activity.
Eventually, however, the person will tire himself out and boredom continues to creep in.
The answer to the problem of loneliness is the reaching out to the other person. Love is the answer to the
problem of loneliness because it is only in love that I find oneness with the other and still remain myself.


The Loving Encounter
Loneliness ends when one finds or is found by another in what we call a loving encounter.
The loving encounter is a meeting of persons. This meeting is not simply like a bumping into each other or
an exchange of pleasant remarks. I can bump into any person without having a loving encounter. Loving
encounter rather means an encounter that happens between two persons or more who are free to be
themselves and choose to share themselves. It presupposes an I-Thou communication.
The loving encounter requires an appeal, an appeal of the other addressing my subjectivity. This appeal
may be a gesture, glance, etc. all these can be signs of an invitation for me to go outside of myself
toward the other.
Often times, I ignore these signs. To be able to see the appeal of the other, I need an attitude, a heart that
has broken away from self-preoccupation.
What is this appeal?
This appeal of the other is not his corporeal or spiritual attractive qualities. The appeal of the other
is himself. It is a call to participate in his subjectivity, to be with and for him.
While it is true that I need an attitude that would enable me to go outside of myself and see the appeal of
the other, it is also true that the appeal of the other enables me to go outside of myself.
If the appeal of the other is himself, it follows that the appropriate response from me is also Myself.
The phenomenon of love, hence, is an intersubjective experience.
Thus, if this appeal of the other is his own subjectivity, presented and given to me, my response and
acceptance of this subjectivity is very crucial.
If I do not respect this subjectivity by attempting to change it according to my own preference, I have
already violated against the person.
Love means willing the others free self-realization and happiness. In love, the other does not give me his
freedom. Rather, the other becomes freer because of me.
Willingness to the others subjectivity implies a personal knowledge about the other. I must know what
makes him happy and what is good for him.
Other than personal knowledge, willingness to the others subjectivity also implies willingness for him to
grow.
Growth takes time; hence, in love I must learn to wait.


Reciprocity of Love
It seems that in the loving encounter the focus is always toward the other. What about me?
As a response to the others offering of subjectivity, I also give to the other my own subjectivity.
Giving to the other my self requires his acceptance.
In love, I am showing my own vulnerability. There is indeed an element of sacrifice in loving the other
which is often understood by many as a loss of self.
However, love does not mean a loss of self. In loving the other I do not lose myself. Rather, I fulfill and
complete it.
If my love is to be authentic, the gift of my self must be something valuable to me. I cannot give to the
other something which I consider as a trash. The other is not a trashcan but seen more as a treasure
chest.
There exist in loving the other the desire to be loved in return. The desire is essential but it should not
become the motive of loving. I do not love because I expect to be loved in return.
The primary motive in loving the other is the other himself, the You.
The You in love is discovered by the lover himself.
Since the you is another subjectivity, he is free to accept or reject my offer. Rejection or unreciprocated
love is no doubt a painful experience.


Creativity of Love
When love is reciprocated, love becomes fruitful; it becomes creative.
What is created in love is growth and self-realization and fulfilment.


Union of Love
The we that is created in love is the union of persons and their worlds.
The union of love, however, does not involve the loss of identities. On the contrary, there self-realization.
We become more of ourselves by loving each other.
As what poet E.E. Cummings says: ones not half two, its two that are halves of one.


The Gift of Self
Love is essentially a gift of self.
To give myself in love is not so much to give what I have as of what I am and can become.
To give myself is to give whatever that is alive in me.
I am able to give myself because I experience a kind of richness. This richness cannot help but overflow
to the other.
But why to this particular other? Why did I choose you and not some other? Because you are lovable, and
you are lovable because you are you.


Love is Historical
Love is historical because the other who is the point at issue in love is a concrete particular person, not an
abstract one.
The concrete other is not an ideal person but a unique being with all his strength and weaknesses.
To love is to love the other historically.
Love, thus, involves no abstraction. Everything in love is concrete.

Equality in Love
If love is essentially between persons, then it follows that love can only thrive and grow in freedom.
Love is not bondage but liberation.
There exists therefore an equality of persons in love.

Love is Total, Eternal and Sacred
A person is indivisible and persists through time and space.
As such, love as a gift of self to the other as self cannot but be total. I do not give only a half of me but a
total me
Love, then, is total.
Moreover, the gift of myself to the other is not given only for a limited period of time. In love, I cannot say
to you you are my fried only insofar as you are my classmate or I love you only for two years.
Love implies immortality; it is eternal.
As Gabriel Marcel would say, I love you means you shall not die.
Love is sacred. The persons involved in love are unique, irreplaceable and as such are valuable in
themselves. And since love is the gift of a person of his own self to other person, their relationship is
also sacred.


Nevertheless, after all the discussions about love, it seems as if love in itself is never exhausted. Love is
a mystery. To see this mystery is to experience it, rather than talk about it. But what can love do to ones
life. Try it anyway and see if without love, you can be anything at all.