To Love and to Be Loved - This Is the Psychology of Love

By Ruth Marita

September 2019 - Whether we are aware of it or not, love is all around us. If only we could realize it. There are many people who love us. Think of your family, friends, and the partners who cherish us. But the biggest question to ask ourselves is what love is.

Different people interpret it in a variety of ways. Some take it to be the emotional feeling they share with their partners (for those who are in a relationship or marriage). For others, it is that care that they receive from their parents, siblings, and other people who are close to them. But all of this brings us to one conclusion: love is everywhere, even if some people are oblivious of it.

However, the psychology of love looks at things in a deeper way. It can be said that different types of love do exist and all affect people in many ways. Do you know that love can change the way a person behaves? Yes, it can. This is one of the factors that we will look at in detail here in a bit.

Types of Love to Know

Before we delve into details of how love changes people, let us look at the types of love that everyone should know.

• Agape love - This is love with no conditions or boundaries. But who else can give such selfless love than one who is connected to you spiritually? That is why the Greeks thought of this as a love that is not given by people to people, but by a supernatural being to people.
• Erotic love - This has a strong connection to the good of fertility. It is love that is related to procreation in human beings. Greeks believed that one could not control this love. Thus, when two people are in erotic love, they end up in marriage and have children as a result.
• Affectionate love - This should not and never be confused with erotic love. Affectionate love, according to those who have dated online on websites like Happymatches, is love that you give to people who cannot be considered as your life partner. It is often short-term with some people today doing it on a contractual basis. It typically has mutual benefits.
• Self-love - Everyone loves themselves. This is driven by the instinct that people will always treat themselves in a special way before anyone else can do so. It is pretty obvious that people love themselves.

There are many other types of love that exist and each one affects people in a different way. The part of the body that is mostly affected by this is the brain, so it is no wonder that love is more psychological. The brain triggers many other things in the body through chemical reactions to alter behavior, feelings, and even what people say.

Psychological Effects of Love

Love changes how people view others and other things. Let's use an example of erotic love. When a person meets the perfect partner and falls in love, they will tend to push all of their other friends to the side. If there were other close people who also wanted to have a relationship with you, a distance will be created without even thinking about it. Even if some feelings were developing towards them, this will quickly fade away. It is even possible for love to change from one type to another during such a transition.

Some people get so influenced by those that they love or those who love them that they copy their behavior. This is common in married couples or those who are engaged in a long-term relationship. According to experts, love has a strong effect on how people think and behave, and this is evident in many social types of research that have been conducted in the past.

Loving and Being Loved

Because love has a strong influence on how we think, it is worth knowing the best way to love and even how to be loved. How we do it matters to others and also ourselves. It is the difference between satisfaction and dissatisfaction and between being happy and not being happy in life.

Before you start showing love, mostly for the sake of a relationship, you need to understand what type of love it is between erotic love and affectionate love, or in normal words, serious love and casual love. It is not fair to approach the other person with a pretense of showing them erotic love only to dump them later because all that you needed was affectionate love for a short time.

Conclusion

When everything is clear all from the beginning, both parties will be moving in one direction as far as their thinking is concerned. Psychologically, this is the best direction to take. Millennials should read these insights well and apply them to avoid confusion when loving and being loved. However, the information will remain helpful to anyone