Why do so many people keep asking themselves “what is love”? Is it out of fear of uncertainty in a relationship?
Or is it because we ourselves have been accused of not showing our love for someone?
And how is it that, even if we don’t understand exactly what love is, we tend to make decisions – good and bad – based on love?
Define “Love” in different versions.
This is what is difficult with love, we can feel it in a variety of different states – when we are happy, sad, angry, confused, or excited – and our attitudes towards love can range from affectionate love, infatuation and pleasure. We even use love as an action, as a force to keep our relationships with our partners, or our friends and family, together.
Love is one of the deepest emotions we experience as humans. He is greater than us, that is to say that, although we can invite him into our life, we do not have control over the how, when and where love begins to occur. Express. Maybe that’s why 72% of people believe in love at first sight. Sometimes love really hits your chest like lightning, and you are not prepared for it.
Since love is inherently free, we spend nights turning around and turning around trying to figure out what it is and how to know if we have it. How do you define something so uncontrollable and versatile?
The ancient Greeks used seven words to define the different states of love that we can experience:
- Storage : natural affection
- Philia : friendship
- Agape : unconditional and divine love
- Ludus : flirt
- Pragma : devoted and conjugal love
- Philautia : self-love
Although there are many different types of love to live, the romantic and loving expression of love is what, on some level, we are all looking for. The reason is that the majority of us find our fulfillment in the comfort of a deeply committed and romantic relationship.
In fact, 88% of Americans cite love as the main reason they choose to get married, so it’s easy to admit that love plays a fairly important role in all of our lives.
The need for a definition
But, because love takes different forms, everyone can experience love in their own way, which is why it is so complicated to define the term “Love”. This is how we find ourselves awake at night, looking for an exact definition on the internet because our culture creates the need for it – we want to know how others perceive love so that we can determine how our love is compared to this definition.
Think about it: if you say that you are in love with someone, but your friends or your family do not see the chemistry, you could be angry when they confess to you that it does not look like love ”. Are they wrong? Or is it true? How do we know who to believe – so, as we do in our time, we are desperately searching the internet for what love is.
What is love? Love is chemistry
On the scientific level, love is a powerful and permanent neurological state. Love is chemistry and it’s not something you can necessarily control. Take, for example, the difference between lust and love.
Lust is a temporary desire fueled by an increased release of testosterone and estrogen – it lasts a bit, then you normalize and it’s over. But when you feel true love, the brain can release a variety of chemicals, allowing you to experience them in different expressions.
What is love? Love is commitment
Love is so difficult to define because it does not exist as a thing. We can feel love for our loved ones, our parents, our friends, our children, and our pets. Some of us direct our love towards God or celebrities, and we can have a love for our neighbors, our country, and our objects.
Love can be blind, misguided, tragic, unconditional, constant, and incoherent. Love is a passionate commitment that we constantly strive to cultivate and nurture, even if it takes many variations.
What is love? Love is infatuation
When you take away the aspect of commitment, love is infatuation. When you are no longer passionate about someone, you are simply dedicated to them. The love that is infatuation is not really good love because, well, we often let our obsession become the root of the relationship, which may mean that we focus more on the idea of being in love or the very idea of the relationship than the relationship itself.
What is love? Love is compatibility
Finally, in the end, love is also a matter of compatibility. When you break down and analyze different relationships, one of the key factors is the compatibility of the two partners. When you share the same values, likes and dislikes, interests, political or philosophical opinions with someone, you are much more likely to be compatible and therefore fall in love.
Of course, there can always be situations where “opposites attract”, but there will always have to be some commonalities for the relationship to take root or fall into one of the other categories of love. Love and compatibility work together to build a relationship, so in the end, you want to find someone you know you are going to be compatible with, right?
