Today I had a good conversation with a friend of mine sipping coffee. With valentines day just passing by, what better topic would it be other than love and how it affects our lives. After some discussion we sidelined impersonal love for a moment and chose to limit our scope to interpersonal love. We were wondering what makes it happen? And how long will it last? Why we are so psychologically dependent on that kind of love? And how we try to judge it every now and then?

You ll find a lot many who believe their love will never fade and also many who would claim there is no such thing called love. Whatever choices we make and chose to believe are based on our history of educated guesses from our past experiences; conscious and sub-conscious ones. Lets blanket this aside for a moment. The word love itself can have various interpretations with distinct meanings in different contexts. And nature of love is a topic of an unended debate and also a frequent one. What most interests the debaters is when it comes to whether its a mamillian drive similar to hunger or thirst or its a cultural need and social phenomenon; or rather something else may be.

Dictionary says – Love can be aroused as physical attraction & need and it can lead to emotional bonding and vice versa.

As a cultural shift, its more likely to take a physical to emotional route these days. Greeks put it in different senses agape and eros. Where agape is the ‘love of the soul’, eros is the ‘love of the body’. Agape is regardless of the parameters and defines, of what the one you love should do or does. Its more of an obsession and passionate liking. Everything else is demeaned in the process. Whereas eros is about physical interaction and beauty that feeds the fuel of burning passion. It is however difficult to separate one from the other. Hindus have it clearly defined as kama and prem. Like Bhagwad Geeta puts it kama is about bhog.. and prem is about yog. Radha’s love for Bhagwan Krishna was yog and Krishna’s love for his eight wives are examples of bhog.

Like hindus, ancient romans(latins) focus more on love with interpersonal persepective. Significance of love in their culture is very noticeable. If you notice Rome(roma) is an anagram for amor which means sensual passionate love and romance. In Ars amatoria(The art of love) Ovid covers all kinds of love. He has also written a guide to dating (This will be an interesting find for many Go read!!  http://tkline.pgcc.net/PITBR/Latin/ArtofLoveBkI.htm ) The chinese see it as confucianism and mohism(universal love). This gets interesting on how we found it. It so happened that we were talking, while a chinese fellow was sitting next to us who got interested and joined us in the conversation. He said love(ai) in their roots is considered a serious thing; he would prefer to say i love you to his girlfriend rather than the same in mandarin(wo ai ni). If he had to say it in traditional chinese language he would prefer using it in a lighter context “wo xiuan ni” which means I like you.

Now while conversing what kept coming to us unanswered was how do we know when a love is pure love for the soul or just love for the body. And how can we determine how long it will last, if its love for the body, it may fade away sooner or later, which is a big concern to all the couples out there, who are yet to solidify the bond and also those who are ringed together, but are concerned and scared to death with thoughts that their partner may indulge in extra-marital affairs. It boils down to question of trust. I have seen some people who would just breach the unset norms in the shadow of their possessiveness and being protective. Americans, are the best of the lot when it comes to dissolved boundaries. They are capable of falling in love again and again They have an average rate of marriage vs divorce ratio as 2:1, whereas indians and some other communities, see it as a life long attachment.

We listed that are three ways love usually happens. It can be through companionship, it can be passionate love(the concept of soulmates) or it can be just physical need. Now at first instance, it is very difficult to draw line between the second and the third. Say for eg. You see someone at some random place, and that very instant you feel the connection. You feel something magical happening. You say to yourself – This is the one. Just a gaze from them is enough to ignite your senses. But if this happens to you seeing every girl/boy now and then then most likely its the third one. Now, coming back to first type, this one we see we happening around us so often. You ll find kids falling to this type in schools, colleges and your colleagues offices. What is strikingly strange is that once the couple is subjected to different environments the love magically vanishes the same way it magically started for them

It is often noted that the psychological need has a big share contributing, which transforms into need and finally into physical need. The transition and the shares may differ, case to case and also how the two sexes involved see it. Where girls from a not so rich background, opt more for a relationship based on psychological need; girls from a fairly rich background seek the physics, chemistry and biology of it. However, it also noticed that girls get attracted more to guys, with an adventurous, carefree life with a harley davidson and a rockstar profile. Across the table all agreed to this These so called bad guys are not so faithful like those with the nice guy syndromes but they still win the battle…eventually lose the war but how is that different with the nice guys. As opposed to the same concept, we laughed at how the nice guys are not so nice. They can be more shrewd strategists. Its a long debatable topic, with different opinions and their containers. So after a long debate, we finally agreed that universal truth is – Girls like the bad guys nevertheless …. prolly because, rude or whatever they are, they are very honest in their approach but ruthless in their behaviour. And emotions and tears drive these nuts madly, but sadly they get sacrificed in the process.

We shifted our focus to more leading question “How do we know this is longterm. This is the kind of love we want to seek lifelong.” And what we found us was this

Love is not just about falling in love. Its about falling in love again and again. Just like you want to have sex again & again. The objectives may be different and so may be the chemistry, but the physics of premise is the same. Ideally, it is about falling in love with the same person over and over, rather than falling out of love and falling for someone else again. Many marriages miss the intimacy in their love for each other and lose out for the same reason. In words often heard it is “it becomes mechanical”. Years of courtship and romance cannot guarantee this. It only happens if they believe in one another blindly. Prolly thats why they say – Love is blind!

Easily explained, It is free from the constraints of unrequited love. Its like even the usual monotony can feel like contentment – a complete relish at the end of the day, if things are lined up fine. And it doesn’t take much long, to find out that mere passion, which sides around sexual gratification, is not sufficient in itself to build a long-lasting relationship. I have seen guys talk about their companionship and how it is stimulated by all the five senes. Smells good, feels good, tastes good, sounds good and looks good. And they seem to have a perfect pleasant company, that makes em feel HAPPY. Still this doesnt last so long, It doesnt always withstand the pressure of time. It gets seized. As we grow, we grow out of this love, rather than growing with it, or growing in it. As we grow, there are changes and some are about lifestyle and thinking, some are about needs and concerns but somehow they believe, they feel, it has reached an end. Thats where both the parties move on in different directions. It has trouble maturing into “Forever”. Forever is prolly not forever anymore. Or may be it never was. Its just a lose term may be. Having talked about that, just for a moment stop and think. it has happened to most of us. Isnt it? and we moved on…

However, in the “love for a soul” or what we know as agape, from greeks; it has no set qualifications. It has no restraints. It doesnt say – if you do this i ll love you. It doesnt say – you should change this or this should change between us. It has no fine print. You just choose to given in. You choose to accept them the way they are, with whatever they have or dont have. It becomes – “I need you” rather than “You need me”. It doesnt seek gain. It doesnt seek gratification. The pursuit itself is self-satisfying. But this can be a fallacy and delusional at the same time. Aint it? You ll end up writing poems, celebrating your pain.

I believe the more we help our partners achieve their full potential in life, the closer we get to maturity. Its the only sane route. Demonstrating that selfless desire for them to gain, is the strongest base for building lasting relationships. But its most difficult to exercise and it doesn’t come so naturally unless you find the right soul, when Its contentment!