What does love mean to you?

Published in

The Weekly Hoot

2 min readJun 3, 2021

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When I ask the question “what is love?” it’s usually followed by “baby don’t hurt me- don’t hurt me no more.” But that isn’t much of an explanation. Instead, it’s a famous song lyric to rickroll friends with. So, today I scavenged the internet to find the different types of love and how they’re used.

There are multiple dictionary definitions of love, the first being a “strong affection for another arising out of kinship or personal ties.”¹ From what I’ve seen, there are three types of love: one affectionate, another based on desire, and finally, platonic admiration.

Affectionate love is the kind of love that leaves one “close, safe, and cared for.”⁴ An example of this would be the typical healthy family relationship. No romance, but a simple affection to want another to be healthy and safe. The receiver of this love is likely to be family or a very close friend.

Desire-based love is the romantic, red roses, kisses, and cuddles relationship. “It’s a feeling similar to being in morphine caused by a rush of endorphins (notably oxytocin, serotonin, and dopamine).”⁵ The receiver of this love is notably normally going to be in a relationship with the other person.

Platonic admiration love is friendship. Plato wrote The Symposium which explains how the original meaning of platonic love had nothing to do with romance.⁶ Instead, love was our motivation to become better versions of ourselves. However, in 2020, the term “platonic love” is used to describe a friends-only relationship, meaning having no interest in being with a friend romantically but still being willing to do anything for them.⁶

But whether your love for a person is platonic, desire-based, or admiration, it’s love all the same.

Citation

What does love mean to you?

Written by Ava Min