Love

Love is experienced in many different ways.

Referring to romantic love, Does any of this sound familiar?

New found love or when you realize you are in love ...it makes you glow. Don't you feel more healthier when in love? I mean...your skin glows, your eyes glisten, you smile more, your energy is up, you feel more 'alive', you're bursting with excitement, your heart and soul is awake feeling full of happiness.

Once a love attachment is made, it's a deep appreciation of another. An intense feeling that can grow with time. As you spend time together, you are learning and understanding about each other. Creating memories, sharing joy and sorrows. A strong bond, feelings of closeness, warmth and intimacy.

According to Wikipedia, love is characterized by three elements: intimacy, passion and commitment.
Here's 7 examples:
1. Liking includes only one of the love components - intimacy. In this case, liking is not used in a trivial sense. Intimate liking characterizes true friendships, in which a person feels a bondedness, a warmth, and a closeness with another but not intense passion or long-term commitment.

2. Infatuated love consists solely of passion and is often what is felt as "love at first sight." But without the intimacy and the commitment components of love, infatuated love may disappear suddenly.

3. Empty love consists of the commitment component without intimacy or passion. Sometimes, a stronger love deteriorates into empty love, in which the commitment remains, but the intimacy and passion have died. In cultures in which arranged marriages are common, relationships often begin as empty love.

4. Romantic love is a combination of intimacy and passion. Romantic lovers are bonded emotionally (as in liking) and physically through passionate arousal.

5. Companionate love consists of intimacy and commitment. This type of love is often found in marriages in which the passion has gone out of the relationship, but a deep affection and commitment remain.

6. Fatuous love has the passion and the commitment components but not the intimacy component. This type of love can be exemplified by a whirlwind courtship and marriage in which a commitment is motivated largely by passion, without the stabilizing influence of intimacy.

7. Consummate love is the only type of love that includes all three components--intimacy, passion and commitment. Consummate love is the most complete form of love, and it represents the ideal love relationship for which many people strive but which apparently few achieve. Maintaining a consummate love may be even harder than achieving it.

Of course we are all searching for the ultimate...to love and be loved in return