“I think he loves me — he can’t keep his hands off me. The problem is: I’m not sure he knows me. We jumped into an all-consuming intimate relationship…and now that I want more, I’m not sure it’s there. He answers all of my questions in a please-don’t-ask-me-another-one tone.”
There’s nothing quite like infatuation — as long as neither partner wants more.
Sex parades as intimacy. And infatuation parades as love, but only until somebody opens their eyes!
The “perfect love” we seek is formed by Passion and Intimacy and Commitment. It’s easy to get confused under the influence, though.
PASSION is erotic attraction (and a potential blinder). INTIMACY is a psychological knowledge of each other, and how attracted you are based on what you know. And COMMITMENT is the decision that you love each other and want to maintain that love.
According to Robert J. Sternberg, Professor of Human Development at Cornell University, there are eight types of love formed by different levels of the three ingredients:
Perfect: high passion, high intimacy and high commitment.
Shallow: high passion and high commitment, with low intimacy.
Companionate: high intimacy and high commitment, with low passion.
Romantic: high intimacy and high passion, with low commitment.… More