When we talk about love, it is common knowledge that it is a feeling strongly imbued with passion, emotion. Whether it flows as gently as a stream or burns like a flame, you can’t really control it. Faced with this romantic and idyllic description, it is difficult to imagine that the evolution of a love story could follow a logical pattern.
Love is a feeling, a rather confusing experience. All the certainties that once defined his universe can disappear at once. For many people the unknown is frightening and in this sense love is a scary feeling. It strikes without warning it is said.
But despite all its magic it is something that follows a set of steps. And therefore, it is not as stealthy as the legend claims.
1. Awakening
You can only truly fall in love when you are ready to be. Awakening takes the form of a revelation that does not necessarily capture the fact that we never bothered to dwell on the question. All of a sudden it becomes clear to us that our interest in a certain person goes beyond mere friendship. Or that what we thought dead and buried never really disappeared. This is the moment when we start to say to ourselves “ I have to get my ex back ”. It is therefore a sudden peak of interest which can arise from a first meeting, or from a reunion with an ex.
2. The concern
Then comes the stage of concern. This special person occupies all of our thoughts. We think about it all the time with the only desire being to have him next to him to talk to him or simply contemplate him. Its presence in your mind is such that you have trouble ordering your ideas during a meeting. The cup you are holding slips from your hands while you look dumbfounded, almost silly and dreamy. Of course the extent of the phenomenon varies from person to person but the common denominator is this important presence in your mind. It can be highly inspiring or, on the contrary, take away a good part of your capacity for reflection and concentration.
3. Idealization
You sink deeper. During the idealization phase , everything the other does becomes fascinating. His way of standing, talking, laughing, his little fads. From this moment, you install the object of your desire on a pedestal more or less large depending on the personalities. You are looking for faults that you could possibly blame him for, but most of your discoveries make you want this person even more. At this point it is virtually impossible for this to be wrong as almost all of what it does is exciting.
4. Awkwardness and anxiety
From here things start to get tough. This is indeed the stage from which you begin to seriously commit yourself to charm the chosen one of your heart. You want to know what she (he) thinks. Has she noticed your interest in her? Is he only aware of all the good that you think of her? You didn’t put on deodorant today. Maybe she noticed it? You are just too nervous and worried to try anything. The best thing to do is to take a good breath and calm down. Easier said than done do you think and you are probably right. It is completely normal and natural. We want to impress this person so much that we come to think that they assess each of our actions. There is nothing more stressful than the desire to be perfect.
You end up taking over your fears and make your request which is accepted. It is the beginning of a bond which will gradually lead to an increasingly shared intimacy. Perhaps you have already finished under the duvet several times. But real intimacy, that which leads to real complicity, depends very little on s3x.
5. Towards the true beginning
Little by little you evolve towards a situation where everything is for the best in the best of all worlds. Love shines brightly under the stars and life has never been so good. At this point you literally feel like you’re floating.
Then comes panic. Everything is going so fast, everything is going so well … And if we crashed. “Oh my God I don’t even want to think about it”. At this moment reality strikes us. The story is really serious, we are making lots of plans for the future. But we also realize how much we have to lose if the other person decides to leave. “ How to recover from a breakup if it were to happen now?”
By getting rid of this somewhat unfounded panic we can really approach the final phase of a romantic relationship that no longer fueled solely by the fire of passion.
This passion certainly helps in the beginning to maintain the bond. But shared intimacy must develop and commitment must be strengthened in order to replace the passion which, in most romantic relationships, fades over time.
