The air last week reeked with overpriced roses and heart-shaped chocolates. Not in my house, as paying a $100 for 12 rose is legitimately ridiculous, plus it’s fun-free February, where champagne and chocolate are vorboten. … Still all these renditions of “love is in the air” got me thinking about what love really means.
We’re sold a story from childhood about fairy tale romances and princes on white horses (yes, thank you Disney for all that misogynistic nonsense), and the roles of husbands and wives are laid deep in our psyches thanks to religious and cultural norms in need of a shake-up. Reality TV shows, watched by millions, often conflate lust with love – Love Island is surely the most misnomer of shows. I’m not sure what Married at First Sight is about (other than narcissists trying to be famous for doing nothing), but they certainly tie love to beauty, attraction, romance, and present love like it’s all champagne and high heels.
I think love is different to that. I think love turns up in boots and overalls, ready to do the work.
Of course, love comes in all shapes and sizes. The love we have for our partners is different to the love we have for our children or our friends, or humanity in general. And it is certainly different from the love we might feel for a celebrity or a pair of shoes or an amazing show we’ve watched, which is not love at all, but nonetheless something that we often describe with the word “love”.
The English language is ridiculously short of words to describe all the shades of love we experience. But the ancient Greeks, who did an excellent line in thinking about metaphysical concepts, had many more words at hand to make things clearer.
They described 7 different types of love – from the romance/passionate type (eros), through feelings of intimacy and friendship (philia) and unconditional, familial love (storge), and on to pragma, which is about commitment and compassion, philautia (self-love), and agape (the love for humanity). Then there is ludus, which is playful and flirty – the childlike stage of love that is all light and laughter.
Without a rich language to delineate things, no wonder we get so confused about what love is. It seems that so often people think of romantic love as primarily eros. But stable long-term relationships surely experience all these different shades of love, at different times and with differing intensities. And understanding that goes a long way to making love a reality.
Love is, it is often said, a feeling. A feeling is a change in our biochemistry that creates signals in our brains that we make meaning out of. Prosaically, evolution endows us with neuropeptides and neurotransmitters that give rise to feelings of attraction and allow us to form the necessary social bonds that humans, who require help rearing young and putting food on the table, need to survive and breed. But relying on our constantly changing chemistry as a signal for love, or for what matters, is a fool’s game when it comes to long term happiness.
Underneath it all, the origin of that feeling of love, that connection, is mysterious. It’s all bound up, probably, in chemicals and pheromones, experience and serendipity. But fanning that love, turning a feeling into something deep and meaningful, that’s choice.
I think love is more than just a feeling, it’s a commitment. Love is gritty. It’s tenacious and determined. A decision to see the best in someone, to ride with them not just through fields of sunshine when life is good and your feelings are harmonious and in sync, but also when it’s dark and the road is bumpy, when one or both of you are lost or confused or scrambling through the weeds. I think love, properly named, is unconditional, and I think if you’ve ever really loved someone, you can’t fall out of love with them. You fall out of romance. You fall out of attraction. But if that’s all love is to you, there is little in the way of forever there.
Maybe that’s why 50% of marriages end in divorce. Because we are confused about what love is, and the work that goes into maintaining it.
The bible goes on a bit about love – love is patient, love is kind, it doesn’t envy, it doesn’t boast… Is love really any of those things? It all sounds very distant, very saint-like. Very clean. Not very human.
When we love we lose our minds. Love is indeed jealous and grumpy. Love is tears and drama, as well as sitting in perfect companionship on the sofa watching Netflix. Love is feeling your heart on the precipice of breaking, and trusting to love all the same. Love is caring enough to fight for what matters, to you both, and that’s not all patience and kindness. Love is knowing there are bits of a person you don’t much like, but accepting them all the same. Love is, of course, also contentment, and forgiveness, and trust and a sense of safety and belonging. And, when you are saint like and having a great day, love is being patient, being kind, being present. In other words, love is complex. It is a monumental leap of faith, and wonderful and a gift. And, like all systems in the universe, requires energy and effort to maintain.
The Greeks might have defined love as 7 distinct types, but, at least in our life-partners, I think they each represent different building blocks on which to build a love that goes the distance – romance, playfulness, attraction, friendship.
Valentine’s day is not about love, it’s about romance. It’s a marketer’s wet dream, especially if you’re in the making chocolates, cards or roses game. Nonetheless, it still is a reminder to stop and attend to those we love. To remind ourselves that love matters and loved ones requires attention. We need those more than once a year to keep our romantic relationships strong. Not just for romance, but for the friendship part of love to.
Romance is one thing, an important thing, but it’s not enough. Love needs more than roses. It needs time to hang out and have fun together. Love needs fun, and laughter, long conversations about deep feelings, and frivolous jokes at shallow ones. Date nights keep you connected beyond the shared chores of being a family, and your collective history, and remind you what you love about each other.
One thing for certain is that love is precious. The dividends that come from investing time and energy in understanding, maintaining, stoking and enjoying love are priceless. Anyway, that’s what love is to me. What is love to you?
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