Seven Deadly Sins: LOVE

Love. How can one word create such confusion in life? It can be peculiar  fascinating and illogical even. So far as to say that not even scientist's can calculate the reasoning for love: what is it? Why we feel it? How it happens? The triangular theory of love was developed by psychologist, Robert Sternberg. In which, the context of interpersonal relationships can be broken down into seven contributing components:

• Liking/friendship is "used here in a nontrivial sense. Rather, it refers to the set of feelings one experiences in relationships that can truly be characterized as friendship. One feels closeness, bondedness, and warmth toward the other, without feelings of intense passion or long-term commitment."
• Companionate love- stronger than friendship, it's an intimate, non-passionate type of love that is stronger than friendship because of the element of long-term commitment- This can be shared between 'best-friends'. "This type of love is observed in long-term marriages where passion is no longer present" but where a deep affection and commitment remain. The love ideally shared between family members is a form of companionate love, as is the love between close friends who have a platonic but strong friendship. This is why some friends of the opposite gender can be defined as 'friend zoned'. 
• Empty love is characterized by commitment without intimacy or passion. 'In anarranged marriage, the spouses' relationship may begin as empty love and develop into another form' but on the other hand a couple could have started with another form of love but develop into empty love following lack intimacy, when the only reason for staying together is 'for the children' or simply to commit for other reasons such as religion. Thus, stronger love may deteriorate into empty love

• Infatuated love: "infatuation results from the experiencing of passionate arousal in the absence of intimacy and decision/commitment...like Tennov's limerance." This can be described as the phonemenom 'love at first sight' like in Romeo and Juliet however if an intimate bond fails develop after time then this feeling will disapear quite suddenly.

• Fatuous love is "fatuous in the sense that a commitment is made on the basis of passion without the stabilizing influence of intimate involvement." This can be charecterized by classic hollywood films where the man courts the women through romantic gestures and then they marry without pre-maritial sex. 
• Romantic love "derives from a combination of the intimate and passionate components of love...romantic lovers are not only drawn physically to each other but are also bonded emotionally" Romantic lovers lack commitment so unless the couples type of love changes the passion and intimacy and thus love wear-off and make the couple more prone to cheating. 

• Consummate love is the ideal form of love which is the love that is associated with being the “perfect couple.” According to Sternberg, these couples will "continue to have great sex fifteen years or more into the relationship, they cannot imagine themselves happier over the long-term with anyone else, they overcome their few difficulties gracefully, and each delight in the relationship with one other". Sternberg also warns however, that maintaining a consummate love may be even harder than achieving it. He stresses that "even the greatest of loves can die." Therefore although this type of love is idealistic it still isn't permanent and thus with lack of intimacy and passion or just 'drifting' as people grow and change this type of love can turn into 'companionate love.'

We can experience many types of loves during our lives through a range of different types of relationships but even just one relationship can display a variety of love forms at one time or can even develop into another form of love. 

Love O

x