- What about those couples that have been married for let's say 40 years? Is this love or just "dependence"?
Yes, but it's a different instinct than what I was talking about above.
What's going on here is that we have a word, "love" which maps to a concept (more on that in a second), and we expect the concept to map to a feeling, and the feeling will map to an instinct. The main problem is when we have multiple concepts but only one word to express it. It'd be like if we only had one word that means both blue and green. I'm talking about the sky so I use that word. If you ask me about plants I have to say "yes, same word" but it's a different concept.
So yes, the word "love" as defined in our language applies to them. But the underlying instinct is different than what I was talking about before, and therefore what they're feeling is different, and so it's a different concept than what I was addressing.
The word "love" applies to things like craving (you want to be with this person), focus (you don't want to be with anyone else - even attractive women no longer inspire craving), admiration (you think this person is great), attachment (you want to keep them even if you don't like them), and comfort (they're just part of your life).
But for us here on this forum, I think we're primarily interested in "focus" because there are outlets for craving like porn and escorts.
There's little reason, from the standpoint of natural selection, to get women to focus on one male. If she's not pregnant, it actually makes more sense for her to switch to a more alpha man if one comes along. Simple social pressure (as in, other women) is enough to keep her from stealing men who are "taken."
But for us men, this instinct to focus on one woman is
vital. Women are weak and need to be defended, and human infants are all basically premature births, so they need constant care. So this specific feeling that I'm describing is what natural selection invented to keep men around even when they can't fuck her.
If you're on this forum, what you're missing in your life - that vague but constant feeling that something is missing - is your desire to be that man for some woman.
- If foids cannot genuinely love, can they have feelings of admiration or caring for their partners that can otherwise be explained as "love" in their book?
Yes, definitely. They clearly crave (chads) and they also have feelings of admiration (for chad). I just don't believe they are feeling the same thing we are feeling.
- If a man's fantasy persist long after a foid has moved on due to her hypergamy, does that make us men way more loyal tan foids and does that make foids soulless beings?
Well, the purpose of the instinct is to make us loyal. Sure, you can make a rational decision to be loyal, but you also have that instinct. And yeah, I don't believe that women experience it.
As to souls, I don't know. I don't believe in the supernatural, but there are certainly aspects of the human experience that are "spiritual." To that end, men write extensively about love. Do women? Sure, some do. But it's mostly men.