When people talk about love, they often describe it as a feeling. It might be warm and fuzzy, sexy or a mix of both. It can feel like walking on air, floating with the clouds or as sweet as strawberry cotton candy. It can also be dark and painful, like wallowing in the muddy pit of self-pity or being overwhelmed by the tumult of a broken heart. People can also have different ideas about what love means and how it should look. For example, some people think that true love requires sacrificing yourself for another person. Other people think that true love is about being loyal to one person.
Some biological models of love see it as a mammalian drive, similar to hunger or thirst. Others see it as a social and cultural phenomenon. Both views have their merits, but they’re not the whole picture.
For many of us, the idea of love is shaped by our experiences with parents, siblings and friends. Some of these relationships are more love-hate than others, but most of us have a deep fascination with the concept of loving someone else as much as we do ourselves. Some of us even have a deep love for our pets.
When you’re in love, it feels as though you could spend all of your time with this person and that their presence makes everything better. You might find yourself thinking about them all the time and getting excited when you know they’re coming over. This is due to a jumble of chemicals in the brain, including dopamine (pleasure), adrenaline and norepinephrine (alertness). It’s no wonder your cheeks get flushed, your palms get sweaty and your heart beats faster when you meet the person who excites you.
The more you spend time with this person, the more you start to idealize them. Your mind creates all sorts of desirable qualities and traits in their personality, and you begin to filter your interactions through this lens. This is how you can overlook red flags or ignore a negative trait in your partner. Eventually, you’ll start to believe that they are perfect and ignore any flaws in their character or behavior.
At some point, you might decide that you want to be with this person for the rest of your life and make a commitment to them. You might say, “I love you,” or show your commitment with gifts or gestures. This is what’s referred to as being in “loyal love.” Loyalty is the most important component of this kind of love, because it’s what keeps it strong and resilient against the challenges of life.
But, how much control do you have over love? If you understand it purely as a feeling, you might think that it’s over once those feelings disappear or are put on hold by something like a new job. But if you view it as a practice, you might realize that the only thing that can truly end it is if you stop doing the activities that make it grow, such as hanging out together and enacting values like respect and empathy.