What is Love? Essay

Have you ever felt the feeling of butterflies in your stomach or heard the phrase “my heart skipped a beat for you”? As children, we grew up learning from our elders and experiencing new beginnings in life. Much of our knowledge has been brought upon by what we see and hear, rather of what we know. Many important decisions we make in our life has to do with what our feelings show us. Love is an important matter in our life because it motivates us in different ways. Love can be shown through emotions or even through actions. What is a valuable definition of love? A brief definition of love can be said to be a variety of different feelings or attitudes that ranges from interpersonal affection to pleasure. In other words, to me love is when

Love is a variety of different emotional and mental states, typically strongly and positively experienced, that ranges from deepest interpersonal affection to simple pleasure. This value is precious amongst all humans, it is what makes or breaks us. Not only does love remind us of a time that was relevant or memorable,

It was really interesting that the author could pinpoint out these little feelings and describe what exactly happens in our body when we fall in love. Her reasoning she exhibited at certain places did that I was speechless and in other places it made me pensive and a bit skeptical of her reasoning. For many people who are not familiar with the scientific description of love is love a simple strong sensation when you meet the right person. Looking at it with a more scientific eye as Anastasia Toufexis does in The Right Chemistry, will tell you that love is a rather complex biological/chemical phenomenon something evolution has given us. Michael Millis gives the following explanation ''What seems on the surface to be irrational, intoxicated behavior is in fact part of natures's master strategy''1, which began in the African plains 4 years ago. This was according to me the key to human survival and it was here the romantic love started to blossom.Thanks to the fact that humans began walking on two legs and mad the entire body visible to one another developed this unique attraction forces, who developed the love into more than just a single reproductive act. Although assembly mates from behind was, and still is, the method favored by most animals, people began to enjoy face-to-face connections. Both appearance and personal attraction became a much bigger part of the equation.

Love comes in numerous ways and can be expressed in countless fashions. Love is powerful, has a meaning, and is capable of eclipsing time all due to the human psyche. One can love anything from a family member, to a fictional character in a TV show, or even an inanimate object. The fluidity of love is what makes it so difficult to understand if one is “in love” or has ever experienced love. Experiences often mold a person’s perspective on what love truly is. Love is not an emotion, but rather a condition of the mind that cause one to act in ways that are uncharacteristic. It can be blinding, obsessive, and pure, depending on the reciprocation of the love. Since love is an abstract concept, one simply cannot measure how much love they have received or given alike. Although the human brain can perceive and interpret other’s actions or words as signs of love and care, in which the mind processes this into the mental psyche that is love.

Taken directly from Merriam-Webster's Dictionary, this definition states in clear, scientific terms what attraction is. However, as every human knows, the power of attraction goes far beyond this cut and dried statement, reaching deep into our psyche, as well into our past. In this paper, the processes of attraction, its evolutionary roots and modern day implications are studied, in an attempt to answer the question "what causes us to be attracted to someone"?

they are distinctly different in many literal and neurological aspects. The different aspects of love and lust are exemplified through “Discovery” by Michael S. Harper, “To His Coy Mistress” by Andrew Marvell, “Emerging Perspectives on Distinctions Between Romantic Love and Desire” by Lisa Diamond, and “How Love and Lust Influence Self-Control” by MinJung Kwon and Youngjee Han. Love and lust, however, are both positive emotions experienced frequently in both males and females. Although they are positive, they can have a negative effect on the future of intimate encounters between two partners.The fine line between love and lust is essential to differentiate

Love has many different meanings to different people. For a child, love is what he or she feels for his mommy and daddy. To teenage boy, love is what he should feel for his girlfriend of the moment, only because she says she loves him. But as we get older and "wiser," love becomes more and more confusing. Along with poets and philosophers, people have been trying to answer that age-old question for centuries: What is love?

Setting the standard of love, there are different levels of love, sexual love, family love or so. It remindes me of the love that Gatsby has for Daisy in the novel, The Great Gatsby, which was written by F. Scott Fitzgerald. After Gatsby being who he wants to be, I’d say a gentleman and rich here, he desires to win his first love, Daisy, back. They definily have pure love for each other few years ago, however, when they break up, everything changed. Daisy now has a husband, and she has

What is love? The type of love I’m describing is the one that gives you butterflies when a certain person comes to mind. Just seeing that particular person can be enough to make one smile and make your day and all the worries go away. Right now that person comes to mind. It’s neither a crush nor infatuation and many are willing to do anything for this thing that is called love. Love can hurt in the long run, and people can also be blinded by it.

     Strangers meet, they break down social walls between one another, and they feel close, as one. They supposedly fell in love with one another, to Fromm, falling in love is not love, it’s more infatuation. Fromm describes

“The evolution of love is ever changing. Its biochemical foundations and its vital importance to human society are informing and transforming the way we understand ourselves”. TED speaker Helen Fischer states that this expression known as love derives from three basic human neural happenings, sex drive, romantic love, and attachment. Once all of these stages fall into place within the brain, the phenomenon known as love occurs, according to Helen Fischer. The depth of it all depends on how deep, and far the individual has taken the subject of the matter into hand. The concept of love as described by Helen Fischer focuses on the effects of love on the human body and the human brain.

Like I mentioned in the paragraph above love is usually defined as an intensive feeling of a deep romantic or sexual attachment to someone, however love is a bit more complicated than that. Love is special, it’s unique in it’s attitude and behavioral components, it’s a phenomenon that eludes easy definition (Our Sexuality, 2012). Love has always been a complicated subject; sometimes love is fickle, sometimes love isn’t love, but rather pure infatuation. Infatuation is often mistaken for love, however it is only a short lived but intense passion for someone. It’s possible that since many infatuations are mistaken love that many researches regarding the measurements of love would include individuals infatuated with each other. In one possible case, a man named Zick Rubin wished to measure love and liking. He set up 13 questions

Love, a combination of strong emotions, concerns, and desires one feels for another human being. It could be shown by ones behavior and sexual attraction towards the person whom they love. There are many facets of love that was described within the text such as passionate, unrequited, companionate, consummate love and many others. The love type of relationship that I would be focusing on is an intimate partner kind of love. According to Sternberg, the ideal kind of love which consist of intimacy, commitment and passion is consummate love. Consummate love is the type of love everyone yearns. I believe I had found this type of love with my husband of four years. We are very intimate, compatible, committed, and passionate for one another. I couldn’t have picked a better partner to fit my ideal of a soulmate and I thank God for him every day. After completing both questionnaires; the Hendricks’ “Styles of Love” and the Sternberg’s “Triangular Model of love”. I was curious to see what my scores entails and whether my two separate scores would be similar to one another. It also made me to reminisce back to when my husband and I first met and the kind of feelings I had then compared to now.

There’s certain people that when you see them smile or laugh, their eyes glitter in the most admirable fashion and their mouths show their teeth and they look so full of love and happiness that you can’t help but smile fondly to yourself. Love. What an odd word. L-O-V-E. How do you know when you love someone? Is it when you always think about them and can 't get them out of your head? Is it when you smile at the mere sound of their voice? Is it when you elope with them to another country? Or maybe you rob a bank together. Or perhaps you two become the next Bonnie and Clyde. Whatever. Friendship love is so pure, I think. Romantic love can be deceiving and saucy and unstable and everything in between. Infatuation is supposedly different than love. Infatuation is like when you go to the store and see a toy you love. Then you buy it for like $50 and the next month, you dump it with the rest of your toys because it doesn 't really have the same spark that it once had. That 's how people are. They get married in their twenties, apparently “love” each other and then get a divorce a few years later. Love is rare. Love is like that gorgeous necklace your grandma has had for decades and wears everyday proudly because she loves it. Love is stupid and unnecessary and belongs to the devil and it can kiss my ass.

Although it is shared, love is communicated in many ways depending on an individual’s beliefs and age. It is shared between two people, and can be passionate, intimate or committing. There are several factors that affect the way love and attraction are felt and expressed. Immediacy, understanding, connection, and physical desirability are all factors that influence attraction. Love take on numerous procedures, and the time of life or developing period of the person involved in the bond, the extent of the association, and the stage of development changes among the individuals. An individual is attracted to others who are close to them, those who are good-looking, those who have shared mindset in wisdom, those who are alike them, those that have reasonable connection with them and those who are tough to get (Feenstra, 2013).