The three components of Love

What is love?

No one knows for sure. One thing is certain, though, that love is not the same as lots and lots of liking, although, for the most part, liking is one of the components. Fro quite a while now scientists - as they usually do – with more or less success have tried to dissect this particular emotion – it is always fun do take apart stuff and look what’s going on inside – analyze it, divide it, specify it, weigh it, define it. So now we know for sure that we don’t know what love is. There are many different definitions of love and love can be many different things for different people. According to the scientists in the know – there are even those that are still unsure about the whole thing: “Love, does it even exist?” - there are at least seven different types of love between people. (Besides people we love food, the way we dress, other things, animals, weather and other stuff, but that’s not what this is all about.)

Some researchers claim that there are two major categories of love:
1. companionate love (walks in the park, holding hands) and
2. passionate love (ah, the passion, your heart speeding, you’re electrified).

Companionate love - let’s walk in love -involves lots of affection and commitment, but no passion, no heat, no sexual arousal. It occurs in friendship or in long (“when I’m 64”) term loving relationships.

Passionate love (the “real” love, Romeo and Juliet kind of love, the love that you and I in the first place think and literally dream about) is – according to science – all about feeling intense longing for the wonderful object of our (“sinful)” desires, about feeling arousal (our hearts thumping, our breath shortening in the presence of her/him to name but a few mentionable features of this affliction). As if this was not enough, we think at all times about our love object unable to control our thinking. Our intense feelings dominate us, overwhelm us. As a result we become slaves of our own emotions. We are in mental pain if we cannot be with the person we love, and we are elated if we can. Simply put we are bewitched, enchanted, madly in love. If this kind of passionately romantic, even crazy love is returned, we experience deepest fulfillment and highest ecstasy (a feeling, not a drug), if not, we experience deep sadness, black despair even. A famous example of unrequited love is Romeo and Juliet (sorry to disappoint you, but obviously love doesn’t conquer all), and Prince Charles and Camilla (a happy end to a sordid story, Hollywood style, love conquers all).

The “triangular” love

The word “love” is being used to describe very different kinds of emotions. The scientists (at least some of them) believe that love consists of three basic ingredients:
1. Intimacy, which means that we feel a close bond with our partner
2. Passion, which refers to the “heat” in the relation, the feelings of arousal and sexual attraction
3. Commitment, which is self-explanatory and which can be short or long term.

To measure what kind of ingredients are involved in your love just check the following statements:
1. Intimacy: “I have a relationship of mutual understanding with my partner.”
2. Passion: “I find myself thinking about my partner frequently during the day.”
3. Commitment: “I expect my love for my partner to last for the rest of my life.”

Thus the wise men seems to be saying that given the above formula, if we put different prportion of each ingredient into the love mixer (our heart and mind) and mix it for a while, a most different kind of love will come out.

In the most extreme case we can have one-ingredient love. I can feel a lot of passion and attraction for sexy Marilyn, but nothing else. This is crazy infatuation love! No commitment, no need for intimacy, no shame, just pure and unrestrained sexual desire. Kiss me tiger!

Getting to know her better, I might even start to develop other feelings for her, beside passion. After all, after a while, I am bound to find out that besides the sexy side of Marilyn there is also a real human side to her with her weaknesses and needs.

On the other hand companionate love has two components: intimacy and commitment, but no passion.

The ideal is, of course, the consummate love, an even blend of all the three ingredients: passion, intimacy, and commitment. If this is what you feel for each other, then it is likely that you’ve been the lucky one and that you’ve found your soul mate. In that case, treasure what you’ve found - and love it – passionately, intimately and with commitment. A love like that won’t definitely come back…
The above article is has been published by “The Universal Court of Love”, http://AskAandE.atspace.com that welcomes all readers with their love questions and problems. The site is entirely dedicated to love in all its human forms. If you’re looking for love advice based on scientific research and personal experience, then you’ve come to the right place.