…it is not love but it is very close.”
Love is perhaps the most important word in the English language – and the most confusing. Books abound on the subject of love, Television and Radio talk shows deal with it. But with all the attention on this same subject we know very little about it. This is very strange because we use it in thousands of ways; I love noodles, I love my mom, I love Nigeria, I love Chelsea, the list is endless. We have fallen in love with love but we don’t understand love.
Falling in love is very different from the real thing called love. Yes, you read that right. In fact, a large chunk of what we call love today isn’t love. Whether it is crush, infatuation or whatever, it is just a part expression of love and not the real love. I mean if it is true love, why do we stop feeling the crazy rush of emotions we felt in our early dating days. A lady once said, if a guy stop acting nice after having sex with his girlfriend, he probably never loved her. Well as true as that sound, I beg to disagree. I mean have you not heard pf married couples who break up after 10, 15, 20 years of marriage and people who date for 2, 3, 5 and even 10 years then break up. I believe the first problem with us today is having a big misconception of the possible emotional ties. Let’s briefly discuss the common few:
INFATUATION: the Macmillan English dictionary defines this as “a strong feeling of love that seem silly especially because you don’t know the other person very well.” Have you ever met someone for the first time and feel strongly attached to them afterwards? You find yourself acting in ways you could never imagine. You are not just yourself. You probably couldn’t get yourself to talk to them or get to meet them but you fantasize about them and it all ends there. It is not love, its infatuation.

“…every form of emotional attachment that is not real love
Is just a part expression of love, not the real love itself…”

CRUSH: this is perhaps the most common today. “It is a strong feeling of love and admiration for someone”. It is not usually expressed and it most importantly doesn’t last very long. The average life span of such is about 6-12 weeks. If it is more, it’s probably something else. If a relationship starts from this, what happens after 12 weeks?
Other not-so common forms of emotional include Mash, Passion etc. Mash is a feeling that seek the affection of someone or the desire to flirt with someone. Passion is a strong feeling of enthusiasm for something or someone.
For so many of us falling in and out of love, this I believe is the daylight between what we are doing wrong and what is right.
It’s funny how the person you fall in love with becomes the most beautiful or handsome human on planet earth; how flawless they sound, appear and seem to you; how ecstatic you feel; how nothing seem more real to you anymore; how words are inept to describe how you feel; how certain you are that you are truly in love. This is the illusion caused by falling in love. You have it all planned out, peoples opinion or perception about your lover doesn’t matter to you, it seem like you have the whole world in front of you. This is the in-love obsession. It is the body’s way of responding to discovering a deep emotional attraction and the euphoria of this obsession triggers the nervous system to respond with such emotions. It is euphoric, ecstatic and instinctual but it is not the real love and it does not last forever; the average life span of the in-love obsession is about two years after which the couples. You start seeing the flaws in your partner, and the things you never really cared about now become big issues. At this point they either break up and seek new experience or learn to love the real way.


“…at the heart of human existence is the desire to be intimate and to be loved by another.”

The real love experience requires effort and discipline. Our most basic need is not falling in love but to be genuinely loved by another and to know that true love grows out of reason and choice not instinct. This is what the whole of humanity crave for. You hear people say “I want him to love me for who I am”; this is simply because we all want someone to look at our imperfections and love us regardless. Real love is volitional. It is the choice to expend energy in an effort to benefit the other person knowing that if his/her life is enriched by your effort, you too will find a sense of satisfaction – the satisfaction of having genuinely loved another.

alukoayomiposi.