What kind of thing is this love?
It would be a big mistake to think that I could tell on one or two pages of this book about what love means. Poets, writers, writers have long and with varying degrees of success been engaged in this for many, many years. The Greeks had four words denoting love. So, the word storge is love, which has nothing to do with sexual attraction. Such love binds close friends, parents and children. The word adare was used in the case when it was about love sublime, like adoration. The word philia meant friendship, fellowship, and the word eros implied romantic love. Today in our
society for all of the above mentioned cases one word is used love.
American psychologist Robert Sternberg was one of those who conducted extensive research to fully explore the phenomenon of love in a modern developed society. He proposed what he himself called the triangular model of love. This model includes three main components that characterize love relationships:
• passion - a strong romantic or sexual attraction to another person;
• Intimacy is the warmest feelings that we experience from being close to another person. Intimacy also implies mutual trust, care, consent and the desire to share with one another their innermost thoughts;
• Compulsion is the desire to share the fate of another person in sorrow and in joy.
A dizzying love interest means that a person experiences a crazy passion for another person. He becomes literally obsessed with this fascination and is excited at the mere thought of the subject of his passion. In these relations, a component such as passion prevails, the other two - proximity and compulsion - go to the background. Most often this happens if passionate love remains unrequited. Such love in adolescence is usually fleeting and can go on for several weeks or months. However, in the event that such love turns out to be mutual, then it easily passes into a long relationship. Then such components as proximity or acceptance of certain obligations begin to play an important role in these relations.
If you believe Sternberg, then romantic love is inherent in two of the above components, namely: passion and intimacy. It is not a question of accepting any obligations here. Romantic love flares up in a bright flame, but quickly fades. Sometimes it can develop into more complex love relationships - perfect love, true, where all three components are pronounced. Such a love is ideal for both men and women in such a general way as ours, where people are hungry for true feelings and tired of loneliness.
According to Sternberg, what he calls conscious love is strongly marked by such components as closeness and compulsion. Passion in it is almost invisible or absent altogether. This kind of love usually connects couples who have lived together for a long time. Passion in them has already subsided. We can say that in the main these pairs are connected by a loyal friendship.
Sternberg believes that as the development of a love relationship, the proportional ratio of the three above components changes. The most proportionately balanced in this regard is true love, which many of us seem to be ideal. We can see how romantic love can evolve into true love, which over the years will give way to the devotee's love. If couples know about the existence of the three components identified by Stern-berg, they can avoid many difficulties in the relationship. For example, Sternberg believes that partners do not fit together, if in the love of one of them all components are strongly pronounced, and the other, respectively, no. And those couples who know that passionate love is burning brightly, but quickly passes, will not rush to marry. Couples, who realize that love passion is cooling down with time, understand that the romantic period is coming to an end. Such a love can develop into a deeper form, where closeness and commitment will take the appropriate places. Mastering such theoretical knowledge will help to find the right path and inflate the flame of fading romantic love. It's better than breaking up when the flame of love begins to fade.