The Precipice of Choice

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Rachel20

Senior Member
May 7, 2013
1,639
105
63
#1
Recently, I got in touch with someone who never really lost sight of me. Our friendship has spanned 7 years and I always knew he liked me but I just didn't know if I wanted to like him as well.
I still don't.

As we have reconnected, there have been things that he has said and shared that make me realize that I can.

What is interesting to me is that whenever I have "wanted" to like someone, I could. It got me thinking about love and how it really is a choice. Or is it?

Is my experience my own or does anyone else feel that? That feeling of being on a precipice of a cliff and you can make that choice - of jumping and...falling in love.

You can also choose to walk away. I think I have matured so much, that I can contain my feelings and my thoughts to protect myself.

What about the rest of you?
 
T

Tinuviel

Guest
#2
Absolutely. Actually learning to love someone is always a choice. Usually, an every-day choice. So yes. Love is a choice. Attraction, for me, is not. I cannot make myself romantically attracted to someone. I can choose to love someone, but I cannot make myself "fall in love."
 
U

Ugly

Guest
#3
Love takes time to happen. You can feel attracted to someone and choose to move forward with it, potentially resulting in love, or you can walk away from it and nothing happens.
It's seems, though, that when moving forward you hit a point where you realize one day you're in love and don't know how it happened. If you are able to shut your feelings in and off towards someone then I don't believe it's really love.

It seems the whole "love is a choice" things has gotten out of hand and no longer means what it originally was intended to. I think what people anymore mean is that we can fuel love or starve it. We can choose to be loving, or choose not to. And whichever we choose can affect how we feel.
Many divorced people can attest that they may always have some sort of feeling for their ex, even after a bad marriage. People aren't going to choose that, so love isn't a choice. What we do with love, or not do, is a choice.
 

JonahLynx

Senior Member
Dec 28, 2014
1,017
30
48
#4
I can control how much I allow initial attraction to grow. Basically when you find a flower, you can choose to water or let it wither. Attraction is largely based on curiosity and expectation - both of which are fed voluntarily. But as for those fundamental things which spark interest in the first place, I think you'd have to go to great lengths to change them. My getting married will not make every other woman unattractive. But nurturing that attraction is 100% a choice, and so it becomes attractiveness by comparison to something else rather than itself.
 
Aug 2, 2009
24,574
4,262
113
#6
I think sometimes its a choice, sometimes its not...

I fell hard for a girl when I was in grade school and coudln't stop being infatuated with her even after she made it clear that she didn't like me... She even made out with one of my friends in front of me.. It was like a knife in my heart, but I didn't stop liking her..
 
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Tinuviel

Guest
#7
To the OP, One more thing: Will you title my next bestselling thriller? ;) (I hate titles. You have great titles, even just for your threads!)
 

Deade

Called of God
Dec 17, 2017
16,724
10,529
113
77
Vinita, Oklahoma, USA
yeshuaofisrael.org
#8
Infatuation comes and goes. We don't just "fall in love." Like Ugly said: we can choose to nurture an infatuation or not. If you are already involved in a relationship, do not respond to a flirt. That is maturity keeping control of your emotions. Sometimes the timing is not right for a relationship: be mature and suppress that also. :cool:

Whatever you do, do not look back on you decisions and think "what if?" Prov. 20:24: "A man's steps are of the LORD; How then can a man understand his own way?" Right or wrong, all your past decisions are ordered of the Lord.
:cool:
 
Aug 2, 2009
24,574
4,262
113
#9
Recently, I got in touch with someone who never really lost sight of me. Our friendship has spanned 7 years and I always knew he liked me but I just didn't know if I wanted to like him as well.
I still don't.
Only 7 years? You've practically just met! :rolleyes:




 
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Ugly

Guest
#10
To the OP, One more thing: Will you title my next bestselling thriller? ;) (I hate titles. You have great titles, even just for your threads!)
The title sounds like a James Patterson novel ;)
 

Katy-follower

Senior Member
Jun 25, 2011
2,719
155
63
#11
You can't control who you fall in love with. Wish it were that simple. Usually it ends up being the most unexpected person at the most unexpected time.

But you can choose to let them go, and walk away. Sometimes you need to.
 

Tinkerbell725

Senior Member
Jul 19, 2014
4,216
1,179
113
Philippines Age 40
#12
[video]https://youtu.be/GHwHPCUQcUQ[/video]

I heard someone say you always have a choice but sometimes because of love people become stupid and act like they don't have a choice.