What is love?

What is love? How to define that feeling so complex and contradictory, which at the same time makes us feel so alive and fascinated? It cannot be observed under a microscope. However, there are those who define it in chemical terms and also those who make poetry of it.

Mahatma Gandhi said that “where there is love there is life.” This is, without a doubt, one of the simplest but realistic definitions. This emotion is what nourishes the baby that has just been born, what helps us grow, what makes us feel part of a social group. Love, so to speak, places us in the world, since it is inspiration, passion, trust, respect and commitment.

Most have felt it at some point, but being able to explain it is still a pending issue. However, through this article we will explore the different perspectives on love and how it has been understood in different fields.

love chooses us

Love songs… we all have our favorites, and in them we try to explain what this feeling is and what it implies and, above all, what it produces in us: happiness, misfortune, inspiration, passion. These lyrics tell us about unrequited love, and even about its typologies (the interested, the romantic, the eternal or the friendly).

If you have already been or are in love, you will know very well what love feels like, even if you cannot express a definition that covers all its nuances. However, there is something that most of us know and that is that We are not always free to fall in love with who we really want.. To put it another way: love chooses us. And that choice may be the appropriate one or, on the contrary, bring us more suffering than joy.

Why do we have so little control in emotional matters, why can’t we be more objective and rational? What underlies the phenomenon of attraction?

Love from biology

There is a certain biological component in love. We have all heard of that chemical storm made up of neurotransmitters such as dopamine, serotonin, and oxytocin. Now, we cannot ignore culture and the weight of society as a mechanism of influence.

When we are in love, brain regions related to reward and motivation are activated, such as the hippocampus, hypothalamus, and anterior cingulate cortex. In addition to this, oxytocin and vasopressin, produced under the effect of falling in love, stimulate the release of dopamine and generate pleasant sensations associated with the loved person, their presence and memories of them.

This neurochemical cocktail, which makes us feel so comfortable when we are starting a relationship, is also the cause of the emotional discomfort that appears after the breakup.

Helen Fisher and the neurobiology of love

Helen Fisher​ is a well-known anthropologist and biologist who studies human behavior. Her works are known throughout the world for bringing us an alternative and interesting vision of what love is. Below, we leave a summary of her most important ideas and reflections:

Love is a powerful motivation system. It is a basic impulse that allows us to satisfy a series of needs.The main need is to feel loved. That desire is more intense than sexuality itself. Thus, Helen Fisher explains that this vital desire of the human being constitutes what we know as “romantic love” and is a whole series of emotional dynamics characterized by motivation, the desire for connection and the desire to share life projects. with someone.The sexual impulse is another of those motivators. Referring to the search for pleasure, self-satisfaction.The third objective of love from this neurobiological perspective is attachment. Addressing this concept as the aspiration to obtain calm and security next to someone, and as the evolution of romantic love to achieve stability and evolve as a couple.

Love from psychology

From this scientific discipline, love is understood as an emotional experience. made up of a set of very specific variables: need for bonding, needs for intimacy, passion and sexuality. All these principles are included in Sternberg’s triangular theory.

In his book, published in 1986, Robert Sternberg, a professor at Yale University, gave the first psychological definition about the dynamics that build a relationship.

Privacy: These are the feelings that promote rapprochement, connection and building a bond. It is the acceptance of the other, added to the trust and affection that is established with that special person.Passion: It is desire, but not only in the physical and sexual aspect, but also with all the neurochemical component that derives from it. Passion is also expressed through admiration of the otherwhere the deepest affection and the need to be close to the loved one arises.Commitment: it is the express and authentic decision to build a project with the other person. It is being faithful to him, and knowing how to build a present and a future where common activities are carried out. It is creating a “we”, our own space where we can consolidate the relationship.

These three dimensions can form different combinations that, according to Sternberg, give rise to seven emotional relationship styles:

Dear: It is usually present in friendship relationships. It implies intimacy without passion and with a different form of commitment.Infatuation: It refers to temporary and insignificant relationships. In these there is usually passion, but not intimacy or commitment.Empty love: It can be relationships built from interest and selfishness. In these types of relationships there is usually commitment without passion or intimacy.Romantic love: These are couples in which there is a strong presence of passion and intimacy, but in which after a while no commitment appears.Sociable love: It usually appears in very long relationships, since there is intimacy and commitment; However, the passion already seems to have died out.fatuous love: In fatuous love there is passion and commitment, but not intimacy. It is possible that they are two people who like each other and want to be together, however they do not have many things in common to build affinities.Consummate love: It is love in which the three elements are combined: intimacy, passion and commitment.

Love from philosophy

The idea of ​​love has been discussed and reimagined by many philosophers over time. Each one has presented their own unique perspective, we share with you some of the most representative positions.

Plato: in his texts, The banquet and Phaedrussees love as an aspiration towards the immaterial, a longing to achieve true beauty beyond the physical.Aristotle: While Plato saw love as an aspiration towards the immaterial, Aristotle focused his attention on friendship (philia) as an essential form of love. He distinguished between various types of friendship based on reciprocity and virtue.San Agustin: This Christian philosopher wrote extensively about love from a theological perspective. For him, divine love (smileys), was the center of Christian ethics and was opposed to selfish love (cupiditas).Baruch Spinoza: He believed that all emotions were rooted in desire. Along these lines, he defined love as a feeling of joy that arises from the idea of ​​an external agent as its cause.Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel: He conceived absolute love as a process where the individual sees himself reflected in another being different from himself.Arthur Schopenhauer: According to him, love is an impulse dictated by the sexual instinct, which leads us to feel attracted to another person.Eric Fromm: This psychoanalyst and social philosopher explored the nature of love in his book The art of Lovingwhere he defended the idea that love is an art that must be learned and practiced.Zygmunt Bauman: coined the term liquid love to describe the ephemeral and superficial relationships of the postmodern era, which are marked by individualism and lack of commitment.

Love from sociology

According to a publication by Sociological record, dfrom this discipline, love It is seen as a cultural construction that transforms over time and that people use to give meaning to their emotional experiences.

Culture determines love in terms of feeling, ritual and communication. The differences lie in how they do it. Georg Simmel was one of the first sociologists to address this perspective. While, for authors such as Comte and Durkheim, this feeling has a crucial role in the generation of social bonds, especially in relation to the family and the marital couple.

For this discipline, Although this feeling may have a neural and biological basis, it is fundamentally a social phenomenon.. Therefore, love is linked to the structure, evolution and problems of the society in which it emerges. It is a collective construction that reflects and, in turn, influences the way people relate to each other.

Love from the Greek perspective

The Greeks also speculated about what love was. They classified this feeling into philia, store, Eros and agape. Let’s look at each of them.

Eros

It is characterized by physical attraction and sensuality. It is a type of love based on passion and desire. It usually feels like a intense sexual attraction and an irresistible need to be close to the person you love.

Philia

Its main quality is the emotional connection and friendship between two people. It is a love guided by trust, respect, loyalty and empathy. It is often experienced in long-term relationships, such as friendships or family relationships.

Agape

Of the four types of Greek love, this is the most selfless, altruistic and compassionate. It is related to affection and tenderness. It can be felt by a person, nature or the divine. Its expression has no gender or cultural boundaries.

Storge

It is the love that develops between the members of a family. Unlike other types of love, it is not based on passion, but on connection and familiarity, where mutual support and unconditionality is crucial.

Love, prejudice and social implications

What happens if you are already forty years old and you are still enthusiastic about the ideal of pure love? Surely they think you are deluded, they make fun of you or tell you that you should be more realistic. Stop for a moment: that is your reality. It is a complete mistake to deny what you are or what you feel because of the prejudices of others.

Historically, There has been a tendency to catalog how we should relate between genders. In fact, in many places, love is still treated as a taboo, especially when it comes to various sexual orientations.

What implication does this have? That we continue to make the same mistakes. The correct way to love and desire continues to be established, and with this we curtail love in all its forms.. We deny, for example, facts such as that people with disabilities…