Greetings, friends!
For centuries, people have been trying to understand what love is, because every person at least once encountered this inexplicable feeling that radically changed his life. But even today, despite centuries of searching, there is no unambiguous and generally accepted interpretation of this concept. However, we will try to give the most accurate definition, consider the 10 main signs of love, and therefore get as close as possible to the true understanding of what love is. Let's begin.
What is love?
Love is a long-lasting and strong feeling of affection, implying sympathy for a person, the desire to be close and experience joint emotions, and also to make him happy.
Anyone who has encountered this feeling knows that love implies the strongest affection. A person in love simply cannot imagine life without someone for whom he has romantic feelings. It is interesting that even today psychologists and other scientists cannot unambiguously explain the nature of love and the mechanisms of its occurrence.
Analyzing the nature of love, psychology considers three key manifestations of this feeling:
- Internal drug
. Our well-being and mood are determined by a complex set of chemicals that can influence nerve cells. States of love and falling in love cause powerful releases of substances that make a person happy. The nervous system seems to give us a hint: “Here it is!” You feel good when he's around. Remember this! - Nervous disease
. Despite the surge of energy, it is difficult for a person in love to concentrate, his memory deteriorates, and his actions often become illogical. The brain functions in an unnatural way, preventing a person from fully controlling his own actions. - Habit
. The riot of hormones and neurotransmitters subsides over time. But by this moment people remember with whom they feel good, so they continue to love each other, but with a calmer and more balanced love. At the same time, they begin to act rationally again, and mutual feelings no longer prevent them from working and doing other important things.
A different vision of the world
The most important indicator of the sincerity of feelings is the transformation of the surrounding reality. The world becomes bright and spacious, and people and their activities are perceived as alive, beautiful and meaningful. What is love? This is the perception of the world through the prism of this feeling.
When love is unrequited and filled with suffering, then those around you seem gray and uninteresting. How is the world perceived? Dull, small and even pressing on a person.
The main indicator of the presence of genuine feelings is the attitude towards life. The lover enjoys every day, his existence is filled with colors. At the same time, kinesthetics are also important: you want to touch your partner and feel closeness.
How is love different from falling in love?
There are thousands of works in world literature that describe the one and only love of a lifetime. In reality, everything is somewhat more complicated. Almost each of us first experienced romantic feelings back in school, but then connected our lives with a completely different person. This is explained by the fact that in their youth people are inexperienced and often perceive their first crush as love.
What is falling in love, and how does it differ from true love? This is a strong sympathy that arises, as a rule, among teenagers and young people who do not yet have experience in personal relationships. Looking at the guy or girl they like from the outside, they create in their own imagination an idealized image that does not correspond to reality. When the relationship develops, the perfect image collapses and feelings disappear.
An important distinguishing feature of love is the desire to take care of a person, give him all kinds of benefits and provide emotional comfort. And although falling in love is not a selfish feeling, it mainly implies the desire to spend time with a person, and not live for him.
The difference between love and falling in love is best described by a Chinese proverb: “Being in love is when you pick the flower you like and take it away. Love is when you bring water to water it every day.”
Love differs from falling in love by awareness. A person in love does not need an ideal; he is ready to put up with shortcomings. True love “ripes” much longer than falling in love, but it is almost impossible to destroy it with petty misunderstandings. We are ready to forgive a loved one more than ourselves.
Falling in love makes a person idealize the object of his affection, and therefore often becomes the cause of unhappy marriages. Young boys and girls, having fallen in love, do not see any flaws in their chosen ones. They quickly start families, believing that they have already met the love of their lives. But living together very quickly sobers them up, and they realize that they are strangers to each other.
True love changes too. Passion and romance pass, but the couple still maintains affection, respect and other important feelings. The so-called “maturation of relationships” occurs. At the same time, the desire to be together is preserved, friendship and mutual affection are strengthened, and the spouses have no doubt that they have chosen correctly with whom to start a family.
Focus of attention
What does it mean to truly love? Firstly, think not so much about yourself, but about how to warm your partner with a ray of heat. The focus is always on a loved one, about whom you want to take care and whose well-being comes first.
In a real feeling, the person himself seems to dissolve, he is not there, but in a selfish feeling, he is completely focused on himself and his experiences. What is love? This is the pronoun "we". Two people looking in the same direction rather than facing each other. They seem to identify themselves with each other, because each has become a part of the other.
According to the theory of E. Burns, three “I” live in each of us: an adult, a child and a parent. When the latter wins in us, our love turns into care. In the second case, it is a strong pull. But the love of an adult is filled with meaning. What is it about?
Famous psychologists about love
Many psychologists have studied and described this feeling in detail in their works. To better understand what love is, it is worth familiarizing yourself with some interesting thoughts of outstanding authors.
Robert Sternberg (American professor of psychology) identified three main components without which love cannot exist: passion, attraction and responsibility.
Arthur Petrovsky (Soviet and Russian psychologist) said that people in love should be passionate about each other, and sincere feelings are always clearly visible from the outside. He argued that love cannot exist in the presence of even the slightest mistrust. He also believed that for love to exist, actions are required, and feelings alone are not enough.
Erich Fromm (German sociologist and psychoanalyst of the mid-20th century) called love a mutually beneficial commercial alliance. He believed that lovers should give themselves completely to love, giving the maximum to their partner and receiving the maximum in return. And if such an approach to relationships is mutual, then the marriage will be successful, even when the initial passion evaporates. Otherwise, love can immediately be considered failed.
Harry Sullivan (an American psychologist of the early 20th century) believed that true love can only be spoken of when a lover exalts the interests of his loved one over his own.
John Gottman (American psychologist) suggested that one of the worst manifestations of love is the idealization of a partner. True love never clouds your eyes and does not prevent you from seeing the shortcomings of your loved one.
Henry Dix (British psychologist of the mid-20th century and founder of psychoanalytic marital therapy) argued that only indifference can completely and irrevocably kill love.
Esther Perel (a psychotherapist from Belgium and a regular participant in TED conferences) says that to maintain love, it is important to always maintain a sense of self-worth.
Please note that in the above examples, psychologists talk about love as an experience, but do not mention the physiological aspects of this feeling. Moreover, from a scientific point of view, love is a purely physiological process. Attachment to a person is formed and strengthened by the release of special chemicals in the brain that provide pleasure and other sensations.
Hierarchy of values
The famous psychologist N. Kozlov is one of the most popular authors of the modern concept of love. How does he explain what it means to truly love someone?
In his opinion, one of the main indicators is the hierarchy of values. Each person has his own. Some people put work, football, friends, loved ones first, others put relationships with a woman first. The higher the beloved is in the hierarchy of her partner’s values, the greater the likelihood that we are dealing with sincere feelings. If a man, choosing between attending a football match and meeting a woman, prefers the former, it is unlikely that we are talking about true love.
Indicator - behavior
To truly love is to do everyday actions that speak more about the sincerity of feelings than words. When a partner is an asset, attention to detail comes to the fore:
Human needs human…
To smile just like that
So that my heart becomes warmer,
To worry: “There’s a draft there!”
Put on your slippers quickly.” (M. Boykova)
According to G. Chapman, each of us has our own love language, that is, actions by which the other judges whether he is loved or not. What is important here? Speak in your partner's language. Words are important to some, some value the time their lover devotes to them, gifts are valuable to a third, a fourth perceives feelings through assistance in business, a fifth through touch.
Psychology of love and relationships - how to understand that you are loved?
Feelings are not always expressed in words. A man may be shy or hesitant to reveal his feelings for fear of scaring you off with an excessively fast rate of approach. On the other hand, some representatives of the stronger half of humanity can talk beautifully about affection without actually experiencing it. To understand the true state of affairs, pay attention to the following actions and actions of a man.
- It is difficult for a person in love to maintain eye contact. But at the same time, he often glances at the object of his sympathy.
- A man in love tries to show the woman he likes his best sides and begins to pay more attention to his appearance.
- A man in love tries to spend all his free time with you.
- A man is interested in absolutely everything about you. Your hobbies, dreams, preferences.
- By giving compliments, a man will admire not only your appearance, but also your character traits.
- He easily agrees to your requests and is always ready to help solve problems.
- An important indicator of the seriousness of feelings is that you figure in his plans for the future.
Try asking close friends or relatives what they think about your partner's feelings. Your own emotions often cloud your eyes. And your loved ones, who sincerely wish you happiness, will be able to objectively assess how devoted a man is to you.
Result of extreme mental reactions
Each love story is individual and at the same time similar to each other. Everyone believes that no one has ever had anything like this before. Psychologists were able to identify a certain pattern. Love is most easily born at the peak of strong feelings: disappointment or joy, anger or inspiration, victory or defeat. At the moment when a person’s inner world is open and ready for new impressions.
Each of these situations evokes strong emotions - a desire to act, an upsurge of feelings, a need for self-affirmation. Such preconditions lead the body into a state of excitement. At the same time, the heart beats faster, the pressure rises, the face turns red, there is noise in the head, and so on.
If in such a state someone attracts our attention and captures our imagination, it is very likely that we will subconsciously associate these sensations with a certain person and love will arise in us. Psychologists call this phenomenon the interpretation of emotional arousal.
Example Anna makes a career in the office and the opinion of her superiors is important to her. But she has a hard day and a series of troubles at work. After work, she decides to take a walk to calm down. And then she meets the man of her dreams. Perhaps she had seen him before, but her eyes opened right now, at a moment of strong emotional stress. However, she reacted much more sharply than would have happened on an ordinary, unremarkable day.
In order for the soul to open, it is not necessary to experience an excited state of mind. Sometimes simple fatigue from physical exertion, such as running, exercise in the gym or fiery dancing. Especially if this is accompanied by euphoria from some kind of victory (for example, you managed to do a hundred push-ups on the floor, or finally stood on the “bridge”). Or we danced until we dropped with friends and got a charge of pleasant fatigue and pleasure from moving to the music.
Where can I find this feeling - Love?
By the way, looking for love, deliberately tiring yourself, is not a guarantee at all, no matter what pundits claim... It will come in its own time, and there are plenty of examples of this. One has only to remember stories from life or read the novels of our classics. On the bank of the river, in meadows and fields, on the platform of a noisy station, among people on a noisy street, Her Majesty Love will find us where Fate has determined.
This is such an unknown and unclassifiable feeling. “The stars,” they say, “aligned” or “Amur was pierced by an arrow,” or many other equally figurative expressions invented over the centuries by poets and ordinary people.
Is there a test: “Do I really love him?”
Very often a person has a need to understand whether his feelings are really real or are these just his fantasies that he has convinced himself of. First, it is important for a person to realize that doubts are normal. Secondly, there cannot be any serious test that answers this question, because everyone has their own understanding and their own boundaries of love.
Any relationship is a superimposition of certain ideas of two people about how, in their opinion, love communication should take place. The peculiarities of their personality give the feeling a special arrangement, so it would be correct to say: as many couples as there are, so many types of love. Which one is more perfect is not for us to judge. The main thing is that the feelings are conveyed to the person to whom they are directed. And this can only be done in his love language.
Nevertheless, on the Internet you can find many online tests designed for a young audience (students and schoolchildren) in order to, by calculating points when answering specific questions, make it possible to distinguish, first of all, falling in love from real feelings.
Biological meaning of love relationships
Depending on gender, everyone chooses a mate based on similar and very different criteria. Although everything is mixed up now, it’s impossible to unravel. However, let's try to look at the very root, at the origins.
Love - what is this feeling for a man?
A man or guy instantly notices the beauty and youth of a girl. And this is justified. A man subconsciously chooses a mate in order to leave behind strong, viable offspring.
To put it bluntly, a man’s goal is to leave his seed in as many women’s wombs as possible. The meaning of a man’s existence and continuation of his family depends on a woman’s ability to conceive, bear, give birth and feed a future child.
Therefore, beauty (a sign of health) and youth (a guarantee that the child will have time to grow up) of a partner are primary for male nature. Even if he does not realize this due to his education, intelligence and upbringing. He instinctively reacts to the beauty of a lady, responding to the call of the natural principle, without even having time to realize this moment with his mind.
Love - what is this feeling for a woman?
Women or young girls also immediately grasp the charm, strength and attractiveness of the object of interest. But.. They almost instantly know how to assess his social status, his intelligence, hard work, maturity, ability to care and... financial capabilities.
And this is also justified. Mother Nature has arranged it in such a way that it takes quite a long period of time to bear, give birth and feed a child. During this period, the mother, more than ever, needs a breadwinner and protector. And the child, immediately after birth, will not immediately run to get food for himself.
Therefore, it is important for her not only to conceive from a strong and healthy man, but also to receive care, protection and food from him for several years. And this provision should be sufficient so that neither mother nor child needs anything.
In other words, someone who knows how to hunt a mammoth is preferable to someone who only knows how to pick mushrooms and berries. If you look at the root, then everything is simple: nature has arranged for a person to produce and raise strong and healthy offspring, distributing quite reasonable roles for this purpose between a man and a woman.
Falling in love can be nothing more than a banal physical attraction that will disappear as quickly as it arose. If this feeling is supported by a sincere desire to constantly get to know another, take care of him and protect him, falling in love has every chance of developing into love, which in fact is a special gift to a person. Nothing can be more expensive than such relationships, because it is on them that the future well-being of descendants, their mental health and the happiness of future generations stand.
True love is the life of Grandmother and Grandfather, who lived together until they were very old.
It should be noted that we are now talking exclusively about the attraction of opposite sexes to each other. This is a natural feeling, the essence of which is the very existence of humanity.
Same-sex love
This is a deviation from the natural world order. A kind of disease that should not only not be encouraged among young people. Unfortunately, this is now being massively cultivated by all media and even in some places at the state level.
Moreover, such relationships cannot be flaunted, like everything that contradicts human nature. Often young people do not follow a true attraction to a person of the same sex, but are “interested” (as they said in the 19th century). They try to stand out from the crowd of their peers in such a strange, but for some reason encouraged by society, way.
Let's imagine where we would be now and in general would be if... How would all our most distant ancestors be able to be born if couples were formed according to the principle of same-sex? Who would give birth to children who would give us a beginning? That's it!
In nature, all roles are clearly distributed and they are the only reasonable ones. The feminine principle attracts the masculine in order to continue in posterity for the benefit of future generations. And nothing else.
Attractiveness - for a woman, strength and masculinity - for a man, so that they are attracted to each other and they continue endlessly through the centuries. In addition to the opportunity to continue his family line, a person gained the ability to love and appreciate a partner. First of all, it raises animal sensuality to a much higher level of human existence.
Example
In reviews of “A Military Field Romance,” released in 1983, one can notice: the most controversial image for viewers was the character of I. Churikova - Vera Nikolaevna, the wife of Netuzhilin, the main character of the film. Finding himself in a love stupor after meeting a fighting girlfriend, for whom he had feelings at the front, he rushes between her and his own wife. Guessing and understanding everything, Vera Nikolaevna is a devoted, selfless and forgiving woman.
Who is she - a truly loving wife or just a mature lady who has nowhere to go, as some viewers think? Probably, they simply failed to see the spiritual closeness that exists between spouses. At the end of the film, it is obvious: Netuzhilin managed to throw off the veil of love's intoxication, retaining real, deep feelings for his own wife. For N. Burlyaev, the actor who played the main character, it is the character of I. Churikova that is the ideal of a truly loving woman.
Psychology of men in love: features and secrets of his relationships
If you haven’t found signs of love in your chosen one, don’t be upset. The psychology of love and relationships will give you a hint on how to win the heart of your loved one. There are 4 female archetypes living in the subconscious of every man.
- Eve is a homemaker, a mother, a cozy earthly woman;
- Elena is the archetype of the ideal lover, capable of charming with her eroticism;
- Maria is a comrade-in-arms, a fighting friend;
- Sofia is a wise advisor and ideological inspirer.
If you can embody all these 4 archetypes and learn to switch between them in time, then you are guaranteed adoration from the male sex. You can watch many interesting videos on the topic of relations between the sexes here.
