Love is a complex group of behaviors and emotions characterized by intense intimacy, romance, devotion, and emotional connection. It involves emotional intimacy, love, trust, safety, security, commitment, compassion, and consideration. Love can range from a simple caring about the other person to an intensely personal expression of love that often depends on a high level of intimacy. The more complex the emotions underlying love, the harder it can be for others to understand. Love differs from other bonding behaviors in that the feelings of love are usually more powerful and lasting than any other feelings people have. It is frequently hard for people to love someone whom they feel inferior about or have little respect for.
Love differs from other kinds of emotional bonding in that there are no prerequisites for love to exist. People often confuse love and attachment feelings as though they were somehow similar but nothing could be further from the truth. Love is an emotion experienced by humans when they feel the other person needs them and is dependent on them. Attraction, on the other hand, is when another person comes into some kind of relationship or bond with you based on your reciprocating desires or needs. Attraction can occur without love but it is more common.
There are four basic types of emotions involved in love: physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual. Physical intimacy relates to how we physically feel within our bodies and relates to physical affection such as touching, hugging, kissing, holding hands, and so on. Mental intimacy involves how we think or feel and includes everything from our dreams to our aspirations and thoughts and fears to our behavior patterns and thought processes. Emotional intimacy involves our connection to another person and our ability to express love through our words and behavior.
Lust is very powerful and occurs when we most desire something that we cannot get. It is related to physical intimacy but is not centered around it. When we are engaged in a romantic love relationship with someone we can be swept off our feet by an overwhelming desire that causes us to do things that may not be so great for us. It takes energy and commitment to keep a romance going but in the end it is well worth it. Lust is only one type of attraction and we need to be careful not to confuse it with attraction because they are two different concepts.
Another form of intense emotions that can sweep over us and cause us to feel incredible sensations is anger. This can be very strong and last quite awhile. It can also cause us to lash out at others and to become hostile. It can take us down many different emotional road and if left unchecked can have very negative effects on us. However, there are also a much more positive side to anger and one that can lead us to making many wonderful new connections and friendships.
The last emotion that I would like to talk about in regards to love is gratitude. Gratitude can help us to keep ourselves motivated and inspired. When we have strong feelings for another person such as love, we tend to take care of them first. We may even be more appreciative of the good things they do for us than of the bad things. When we focus more on the good things we find more reason to be grateful for them. Attachment to another person can be extremely deep and once you have developed this level of connection it can lead to feelings of gratitude that are sometimes difficult to suppress.