Types of Love: What Love Means to Different People

Let us look at a few types of love, and how these may be related to various people and experiences in your life. Love does not follow any rules, and understanding different types of love can help understand and reinforce the relationships that you have with people in your life. When it comes to understanding love, and what types of love we feel towards different people that we surround ourselves with, it can be tricky. The love you feel for your partner in the beginning stages of the romantic relationship may look very different from the love you might feel years into the relationship.

This type of love is one in which the person who is romantically involved is still feeling as strongly for the other person as when he or she was younger. While it is very common among younger couples, older couples that seek out Ludus will have more fulfilling relationships. This kind of love looks and feels much like the Philia – the loving attachment felt among friends. This kind of love is especially apt as a reminder for those couples that let their passions and closeness fade away over time.

One of the important things to keep in mind about the two types of love is that passional love is often short-lived, whereas compassionate love can more easily endure over time. Unrequited love, on the other hand, may happen when just one person feels passionate love, or when two people are prevented from being together for one reason or another.

Because the lovers in Eros enjoy the feelings that come from being in love, they are usually serial monogamists, staying in one relationship for as long as it feels new and exciting, and then moving on so that they can have these same feelings with someone new. Eros is sexy, or passionate love, and is more similar to modern constructions of romantic love. Eros is primal love, which comes about by natures instincts in most humans.

Ironically, Ancient Greeks thought that this type of love was better than Eros (Sexual Love) because it represented love among individuals that considered each other to be the same. It was for these reasons that the Ancient Greeks thought that Eros was a dangerous kind of love, because of the way Eros causes people to lose control.

The Ancient Greeks studied love, and they labeled each type, giving it its own Greek name. The Ancient Greeks had multiple words for love, which allowed them to more clearly differentiate the various types. Noting the numerous intricacies and shades of love, Ancient Greece decided that love could be broken into seven distinct types.

The seven types of love are loosely based on classic readings, particularly those by Plato and Aristotle, as well as on John Alan Lee 1973 Book The Colours of Love.

According to Robert Sternberg, the 7 types of love are: