The truth about love

The truth about love is that we can never get enough of it. We’re also afraid of it. Songs have been written about the idea that “too much love can kill you, just as sure as none at all”

Sometimes I wonder if people have forgotten that since the time of the ancient Greeks people acknowledged that there are more kinds of love, than what we refer to in our day and age as “Romantic love”.

After all, you love your brother, your sister, your mother, your child, in a different way than you love your partner, right? (Except if you ask Freud maybe).

The ancient Greeks recognized at least eight kinds of love. They didn’t think you had to choose one, or the other, but recognized that love is a complex weave that changes over time as strands are measured, woven in, taken out and cut. Love evolves and grows as we do. 

Having a look at the types of love they recognized and had words for we find the following:

Eros

Roughly translates as a love of the body, and has everything to do with physical attraction and sexual passion. While it is something most people want to feel with their partner, the ancient Greeks were wary of this type of love as they recognized that too much fire, could also be a disruptive force.

Philia 

Philia has been translated as brotherly love. Love of the mind, the type of love we feel for our comrades in arms. Loyalty and a deep abiding connection, that has nothing to do with the physical. It’s the type of love that develops when people face hardship and adversity together and find they can rely on each other. It's the basis for most friendships.

Ludus 

Ludus has been translated as playful love. It’s not limited to lovers, it can exist between friends and even family. It’s a light-hearted fun-loving, kind of love. It’s dancing, teasing, flirting, joking, singing together, and making merry. It’s in your best friend and you playing air guitar in the car and jamming to your favourite tunes not caring what anyone thinks. It’s in your brother lightly poking fun at the time you painted your nails in the colour of a rainbow. It’s in play fighting. It's in being silly and vulnerable and carefree, together.

Agape 

Godly love, or love of the soul. It’s the spiritual kind of love that someone can have not just for a specific individual but for groups or even all of mankind. It’s the kind of love that expands the heart's capacity for love if it’s returned. It’s expressed in empathy, and compassion, in charity and self-sacrifice. It’s sometimes thought of as the highest form of love. It’s often considered to be unconditional. The kind of love that inspires random acts of kindness, and that doesn’t expect anything in return.

Pragma 

This form of love is said to be the most enduring kind of love. Again it’s not limited to lovers, it’s the type of love that comes from a commitment to a relationship, through active choice from both parties, be it familial, friendly or romantic. I can be found in friends who love and support each other for decades, through whatever storms rage in their lives. It can be found in long term partners who know each other’s failings and foibles and decide to love each other regardless. It can be seen in family members that argue but always stick up for each other if some outside force threatens. The stable forever kind of love that is both choice and action.

Philautia 

You know how people say, you cannot love others if you cannot first love yourself. Well, philautia is a healthy form of self-love. It’s not manic or obsessive like narcissism. It’s about giving yourself room to be. Permission to fail and compassion and forgiveness. It’s in taking care of yourself, mentally and physically. People should definitely take to practicing this kind of love more.

Storge

Usually, the best examples of Storge are found in parents and children. It’s a shared feeling of love, safety, shelter from life’s storms. Support for eachother.  Shared experiences and memories. Storge is not limited to family. I can exist in patriotism and allegiance. In a sports team, a religious community, and even some companies.  It has many things in common with Pragma, except Storge happens naturally, and Pragma thrives by conscious choice and effort.

Mania 

This obsessive type of love is not healthy, it’s the kind of love that comes from being convinced the other person “completes you” even if they don’t feel the same way. It’s the kind of love that’s connected to jealousy and obsessiveness.  

Mania is what you might feel when your crush is found laughing and having a good time with someone else, and you feel the sting. Mania is what you find in love that is unrequited. Some even argue that mania isn’t a form of love. I’ll leave that assessment to you though.

Having had a look at all the different kinds of love I am sure you can look at all the relationships in your life and point out examples of your own. Too many of us connect love and intimacy when seen in others immediately to sex. I would love it if we could stop labelling human connections with this narrow view.  

So the next time you witness the love between any two people, allow yourself some time to experience some agape and appreciate that it’s a beautiful thing. And with your newfound knowledge on love, instead of jumping to the inevitable conclusion that they must be in “eros” with each other, maybe allow that it might be a different kind of love altogether.