What is Love?
Types of love, science behind falling in love, and what makes love special
What is love? This is a question that has been asked for centuries. It’s a feeling that we all experience, yet it’s so difficult to define.
Love is a complex emotion that can be felt in many different ways. Some people love sunshine and rainbows, while others love the chill of winter. Love can be felt for a person, thing, or even an idea. According to the dictionary, love is a mix of emotions, behaviors, and beliefs associated with strong feelings of affection, protectiveness, warmth, and respect.
But can we really define love? To fully understand what love is, we need to look at the ancient Greeks. Instead of one all-encompassing word, the ancient Greeks used seven different words to explain love in its many different forms. Eros, which means passionate love, is the most common type of love we see in our world today. It’s fueled by a desire for pleasure, and it’s often love at first sight.
Romantic relationships often start with this type of love, but it can be confusing. It’s the age-old question of love versus lust. Both lust and eros come with intense physical attraction and a strong desire to be close to the person, even if you’ve just met them. Some people like to differentiate between lust and eros by the length of time they stay around.
If it’s a fleeting emotion, it’s lust. If it lingers around, it’s love. But is that really true? If lust simply becomes love, how long does it take for the switch to happen? According to science and human biology, there are three stages to falling in love, and it all starts with stage one: lust.
Lust is driven by testosterone in men and estrogen in women. Stage two is when we start feeling a sense of a high when we see them, speak to them, or even just think about them. It’s a high similar to the feeling you’d get from drugs or alcohol. When we start to feel a sense of euphoria when we’re around them, it’s because testosterone and estrogen are replaced by dopamine, making us happy and excited. Adrenaline triggers our fight or flight, and norepinephrine keeps us alert.
This is why falling in love feels like an addictive rush, like you’re driving at 120 miles per hour with no brakes in your car.
Love isn’t always serious, permanent, or based on physical attraction. Ludus describes a love that is built on infatuation, flirtation, and fun. Sometimes love is simply having a crush on someone and acting on it. It’s going out for drinks with a friend and acting like a romantic couple for the night, or random kids pushing each other on swings in the playground. It’s going to the club and dancing with strangers or singing karaoke in a room full of people you’ve just met. Sometimes love is casual, exciting, and fun. It doesn’t need any obligations or implications to be love.
Love doesn’t even need friendship to be love. Love simply is. We often say that love involves commitment, time, mutual trust, and acceptance between two people, but that’s not always the case. None of these exist between a mother and her child, yet love does. The truth is that sometimes we can love someone even when we don’t like them. The Greeks called it storge, unconditional familial love, the kind of kinship love that only exists between family members. And of course, family does not mean you have to be tied by blood. Lifelong friends who become family, adopted children, step-parents, when we consider someone our family, we often develop a deep and profound love for them that transcends any other type of love.
Agape is another type of love that the Greeks defined, which is often associated with charity, selflessness, and compassion. It’s the type of love that motivates us to do good in the world, to help others without expecting anything in return. It’s the love that makes us donate to charity, volunteer at a soup kitchen, or visit someone who is sick in the hospital. It’s a love that is not based on any physical attraction or personal gain but rather on the goodness of the human spirit.
Love is not just an emotion, but it’s also a science. Researchers have spent years studying the chemistry behind love and have discovered that certain chemicals are released in the brain when we fall in love. The neurotransmitter oxytocin, also known as the “love hormone,” is released during physical touch and sexual intimacy, creating a sense of bonding and attachment between two people. Serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine are also released during the stages of falling in love, creating a complex cocktail of emotions that can be both exhilarating and overwhelming.
Love is special because it’s a universal language that transcends cultural, social, and economic boundaries. It’s something that we all experience in our lives, whether it’s through our relationships with family, friends, or romantic partners. Love can bring people together and create a sense of belonging, or it can tear people apart and cause pain and heartbreak. It’s a powerful force that can motivate us to do amazing things or make us feel like we’re nothing without it.
Love is a complex emotion that can be felt in many different ways. It’s a feeling that we all experience, yet it’s so difficult to define.
The ancient Greeks understood the complexity of love and defined it in seven different ways. The science behind falling in love has also shown us that there are specific stages that our brain goes through when we fall in love. From lust to infatuation to attachment, falling in love is a complex process that involves both our hearts and our brains.
