Relationships
Part 7 - Love, love and more love

Q: What do you mean when you say the word “love”?

How many different types of love can you think of?
What do you think is the difference between love, being in love or falling in love?
Is love the driving force behind us forming relationships?
So many questions, so many opinions...

The writer Susan Sontag said that no human relations are a mystery – except love. Does she have a point? Should we leave love alone and simply enjoy its mysteriousness?

Here are some love definitions that may help us (or confuse us, as the case may be):
• “an intense feeling of deep affection”
• “warm attachment”
• “a strong feeling of desire”
• “unconditional acceptance and positive regard”

Some say love is a basic need of all humans: just as we can be hungry for food and thirsty for water, so we can be hungry/thirsty for love. Others point out that love is biological, social, psychological and emotional all at the same time. (That’s a whole lotta love!)

Emotionally, where does love start and end? Is it on a spectrum or a continuum? If so, what is above and below love – and where do attraction and lust figure? Is fear the opposite of love? Or is hate? Or something else?

Would it be useful if we mapped out our own notions and experiences of love using metaphors or equations, Venn diagrams, or a landscape such as an island?

Can you have love without anyone else? (Then again, how would you know how to love yourself if it wasn’t from understanding how others give and receive love?)

There is something called self-love*, where you look after yourself and your general well-being. Some people deem this to be selfish [*at SD, we would call this self-worth].

There are also the terms unrequited love, platonic love, as well as love-struck and lovesickness, which suggest that love can make you mentally and physically ill.

Can you enter into the field of love without being vulnerable (vulnerable to hurt and pain, to rejection, to loss, to losing control, to losing yourself, your identity, your shape)? If you are unable to take a risk, if you are overcome by anxiety and fear, does this mean that you never get a chance to experience love?