What is love?

What is love? How to define something so complex, contradictory, fascinating and at the same time makes us feel so alive? It can not be observed under a microscope, there are those who define it in chemical terms and who make poetry from it. Love is inspiration, sometimes even suffering, everyone wants to live it , most have ever felt it, but our pending account is still being able to explain it.

Mahatma Gandhi said that "where there is love there is life" . This is undoubtedly one of the simplest but most realistic definitions of this wonderful, yet mysterious, dimension. This emotion is what nourishes the baby that has just been born, the one that helps us grow, the one that makes us feel part of a social group. Love, so to speak, places us in the world.

Love chooses us

Love songs. We all have our favorites, and in them we try to explain what is and what this feeling and above all, what we produce: happiness , misery, inspiration, passion .*. These letters tell us of unrequited love, and even their typologies : the interested love, the romantic, the eternal love, the one born of friendship ...

"Love is something fiery

That forms a ring of fire ...*

If you have already been or are in love, you know very well what you feel even if you can not express it in a definition that semantically encompasses all nuances. So, if there is something that most of us know is that we are not always free to fall in love with who we would really like . To put it another way: love chooses us. And that choice may be appropriate or on the contrary, bring us more suffering than said.

Why do we have so little control in affective matters, why can not we be more objective, more rational? What underlies the phenomenon of attraction?

Woman with closed eyes thinking about love

What is love? What does science tell us?

In love there is a certain biological component, we know it . We have all heard of that chemical storm formed by neurotransmitters such as dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin ... However, we can not ignore other influences, in this case, external. We talk about our culture and the weight of society as a mechanism of influence

Love from psychology

From the purely psychological point of view,  love is an effective experience made up of a set of very specific variables: the need to bond with someone, the need for intimacy, passion , sexuality ... All these principles are included in Stenberg's triangular theory.

It was in 1986 when Robert Stenberg, a professor at Yale University, gave a first psychological definition in his book  The triangular theory of love , on those dynamics that build a relationship. About what in essence, seeks and defines love.

Intimacy: are the feelings that promote the approach, the connection and the construction of the bond. It is the acceptance of the other and the feeling of trust and affection that we establish with that person.

Passion: it is desirable, but it does not refer only to physical and sexual desire with all the neurochemical component that derives from it. Passion is also expressed through the admiration of the other, through that psychological involvement where the deepest affection and the need to be close to the loved one arise.

Commitment: it is the express and authentic decision to build a project with the other person. It is to be faithful, and know how to erect a present and a future where common activities are carried out. It is to create a "we", an own space where to consolidate the relationship.

Helen Fisher and the neurobiology of love

Helen Fisher is a well-known anthropologist and biologist who studies human behavior at Rutgers University. His works are known throughout the world for bringing us an alternative and equally interesting vision of what love is. For her, it is a powerful system of motivation, a basic impulse that allows us to satisfy a series of needs.

*The main need is to feel loved. This 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 ". It is about a whole series of emotional dynamics characterized by motivation, the desire to bond, the desire to share life, projects, to be a joint part of the project with someone.

*The sexual impulse is another of those motivators. It is the pursuit of pleasure, of self-satisfaction ...

*The third objective of love from this neurobiological perspective is attachment. Attachment as an aspiration to obtain calm and security alongside someone, attachment as the evolution of romantic love to achieve stability and evolve as a couple.

Love, prejudices and social implications

What happens if you are already forty years old and you are still enthusiastic about the idea of pure love? Absolutely nothing. Surely they create you a deluded person, they make fun of you or they will tell you that you should be more realistic. For a moment: that is your reality. It is a complete mistake to deny what you are or what you feel for the judgments of others.

Historically, we have tended to catalog how we should relate to the opposite sex. If we say "opposite sex" it is because the LGBT collective, sadly, is still being omitted or treated as a taboo when it comes to talking about love.

What implication does this have? That socially we continue deriving in the same errors. It continues to establish what is the right way to love and desire, and with that we cut love in all its ways, forms and expressions. We deny, for example, facts like that people with disabilities also have their effective and sexual needs. We deny (or do not want to see) that love and sexuality are present also in the third age.

  

The true meaning of love

It happens to everyone. In no communication media, the silhouette of two lesbian women, a white boy and a black girl, a sweeper and a lawyer or a young writer and an older man come out as "the perfect couple".

Love is the greatest act of courage.

Recently a man with multiple sclerosis appeared in the media who, prostrate in a bed, saw his baby born. We all shudder, we are all excited. Few would have the necessary arrests to fight by their side day by day.

We live in the culture of minimal effort and appearances. We are big selfish.

Love supposes a great surrender, but without losing the identity. Love is sharing, learning, discovering ... It is often said to someone who has ended a relationship that there is much fish in the sea. We could even add something else, there are many seas with fish. Love does not understand languages, colors, ideologies, ages or sexes. Do not be the one to distance him by prejudices, fears or myths hidden in love phrases.

So, if you have not yet found your "blue prince" or "you got frog", you think that "women do not understand us" or that "we are too complicated" you may be taking a wrong perspective. Open your mind and live, love can find you in the least expected place.