HOW TO RECOGNIZE A PLATONIC LOVE?

platonic love is a love without physical attraction and s**xual relations, it is a love of the intellectual type. The concept of chaste love appeared in the 16th century by the Italian philosopher Marsilio Ficino under the name “Amor Platonicus” which refers to Plato’s Banquet and where Socrates describes a ladder, an ascent that goes from love to the lowest, that of the attraction of the body, at the highest, contemplation, love of Beauty. A pure love is often seen as ideal, it is one of the poets, the opposite of love vulgar and fleeting linked to physical attraction. In which cases do we speak of a platonic romantic relationship today and how can it change over time?

THE DIFFERENT PLATONIC LOVES

chaste love between a man and a woman is not a friendship. Historically, the term platonic was synonymous with courtly love, lovers love the spirit of the loved one and not their body. It is also love between people of the same family.

Today the term is a little different, it is sometimes seen as derogatory and for some, it boils down to “feelings but no s**x” or no interest in s**x. It is denigrating what a lot of people experience and appreciate.

It is still an intense relationship but without physical intercourse. This can be the case in relationships that are impossible for X reasons, family,  romantic friendship, religious or long-distance relationships for example.

There is also the case where one of the two people is not at all interested in physical love, the other person is happy with it at least, for a while, while sometimes secretly or unconsciously hoping for more.

 

THE EVOLUTION OF PLATONIC LOVE

According to Socrates, love is to desire what one does not have, what one is not, love is therefore fundamentally selfish. In a romantic relationship, ideal or more traditional, it is two people who meet and two different conscious or unconscious desires that collide.

chaste love often is only a phase, which can last several years, but may end following the exhaustion of a member of the couple who most desires is to say, physical and s**xual relations.

The pure love is that of an ideal, with time, the fantasy fades and reality takes place, or to a judgment of the relationship because the other is put on a pedestal and therefore does not exist either, this perfect love is conscious and in which case it can last for many years.

This was the case with epistolary relationships in the old days which could last for many decades or purely virtual relationships with the Internet today where we love without consuming.

Pure love can be as one that comes naturally after many years together. With age, feelings are present but the physical desire no longer exists, so we live like a brother and a sister.

THE PLATONIC LOVE, FINALLY

This love, like all chaste loves, can be very beautiful, because love is lasting, solid, and not linked to physical attraction, but it can also sometimes be painful if one of the two people of the couple still has a physical attraction for the other.

Regardless of the type of platonic love, like any feeling, it changes and can evolve, either in one direction or another over time.