What’s the Ideal Type of Love?

There are different types of love that correspond to different aspects of your life, and all are important to social relationships

Are there different types of love? What do we mean when we use the word “love,” after all?

The word “love” abounds in social networks, and people can be referring to pets, friends, places, landscapes, situations, and even food.

In its deepest sense, however, love is that intense feeling you develop for another person and that you want to feel in return.

Deep within each person there is a desire to love and be loved. Falling in love forever is a natural desire for most of us.

Sometimes, however, the world seems determined to prove that such an eternal love doesn’t exist. You see relationships – partners, marriages – between people that are becoming less durable.

The types of love, according to the Greeks

Fleeting love

This is a type of love that is short-lived and corresponds to sexual attraction, to desire.

• It’s that love that shows itself at the beginning of a relationship, where passion and sexual experience play a crucial role.
• This love is like the start of an adventure that could become something deeper eventually. However, in the beginning, it’s idealized and carnal.

In Greek culture, this love is represented by Eros, the god of love.

Brotherly love

This love is what people feel for their families, friends, and companions.

It’s a loyal type of love that implies commitment and deep knowledge of the person, and it usually takes time to develop. It’s also the love that we feel for our pets.

The Greeks called it storge love.

Social love

This type of love may be for an individual person or a group, and inspires noble causes.

• It’s the feeling that leads you to fight for the greater good and forge cooperation among others.
• It brings solidarity. Thus, it’s the type of love that inspires you to be kind and work as a team to achieve a common goal.

Social love is very closely linked to social psychology.

Open love

By “open” love, the Greeks meant the broadest definition of love that a human can experience.

This would be the love of nature itself, or for a god, or for all of humanity. It’s the type of love that has perhaps become most deteriorated in today’s world where people’s individualistic and egocentric feelings tend to prevail.

What is the ideal type of love?

All four kinds of love we’ve described are ideal in the grand scheme of things.

The ideal type of love includes all of the different kinds of love, across languages and many different ways of being. The problem for most people lies in keeping them strong so that they do not fade.

People speak very different love languages, and those differences can lead to misunderstandings and even conflict. In order for people to stay together and be happy, therefore, they have to learn the love language of the person that they love.

It’s a reciprocal learning process and it’s just as important for couples as it is for friends and family members. It’s critical for any social group in which love is an important bond.

The language of love

• There are words of affirmation, praise, verbal compliments, words of encouragement, kind words. These stimulate others and make people feel valued and loved.
• Love requires shared, quality time, that’s really dedicated to the other person.
• Gifts for your loved one can be humble, and show the other person that you love them.
• Acts of service are simple and supportive actions that alleviate the other’s tasks: cooking, caring for children, for example.
• Physical contact such as holding hands, kisses, hugs, and having sex in the case of a couple, are all expressions of love towards each other.

Attending to these languages ​​that express love helps satisfy other people’s emotional needs. Thus, it will make your love endure and enhance it.

Love is present in everyone’s lives, but we need to learn to express it. All you have to do is decide how.