The first conversation actually occurred at work. It was actually prompted by a conversation that a few of my aides were having at the nurses desk. We have a fair number of very interesting and enlightening conversation there. This specific one was actually about love. My aide had made a comment that she was madly in love with a boy that she had recently been dating. I expressed my honest opinion that I thought it was impossible to really love someone that you have barely known for a couple of weeks. She stated that she knew it had to be love because he was all that she could think about. I thought it interesting that she would define love as what I would consider infatuation at best and lust at the worst.
I mentioned this conversation to a girl that lives in Salt Lake City. After the conversation with my aide I was somewhat curious as to what other people believe that love is. This girl brought up some ideas that I thought were fascinating. Instead of describing love by how a person feels; she defined it by what someone does. She described the relationship that her grandfather and her grandmother had. There are times in which I wish I could record conversations in my mind because I'm probably not going to do justice to her comments. The basic idea, as I understood it, is that she defines love as having such an intimate relationship that you are completely attuned to each other. Her grandmother always knew what her grandfather wanted and/or thought.
The conversation continued on to why some people rush to say "I love you to each other." I think that one of the problems is that the English language doesn't really have the capability to reflect that graduations that exist in human emotion. We have "I like you" and we have "I love you." There is nothing in the normal language that would delineate the range of emotions between those two. So it leaves a person with the following conundrum. Do you keep using "I like you" even though it understates your feelings for a person; or do you switch do "I love you" which in in all likelihood overstates the emotions you're really feeling.
After these conversation I realized something somewhat ironic. Those girls to whom I've expressed the words I love you too are those girls who I probably felt a little over "like". The one girl whom I've come closest to real love however; I never expressed it to her. There's got to be a better way to really define how you feel about someone. I recently found one in a text book. Weird I know.
One of the classes I recently took was development across the lifespan. There were several chapters covering the various age groups and the challenges that each age group typically faces. One of the major discussion points for the emerging adulthood group was the formation of relationships. There was a fascinating article written by Robert Sternberg in 1988 titled "The Seven Forms of Love."
He believed that all forms of love can be described through 3 different attributes.
- Passion - an intense physical, cognitive, and emotional onslaught characterized by excitement, ecstasy, and euphoria.
- Intimacy - Knowing someone well; sharing secrets. Each partner gradually revealing more of himself/herself as well as accepting more of the others revelations.
- Commitment - Grows gradually through decisions to be together, mutual caregiving, shared possessions, and forgiveness.
- Liking - Intimacy
- Infatuation - Passion
- Empty Love - Commitment
- Romantic Love - Passion, Intimacy
- Fatuous Love - Passion, Commitment
- Companionate Love - Intimacy, Commitment
- Consummate Love - Passion, Intimacy, Commitment
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