The previous Cardigan On segment about Relationships, I have decided, sort of opens up the table to discussion about the nature of love. If you haven't already read that section, you might wish to backpedal now and do so. What follows is more or less a direct extension of that.
I think.
The ancient Greek philosophers divvied LOVE up into three different categories, all of which were considered to be different forms of love. The one that most of us have heard about is eros, from which we get the word "erotic." As the name implies, eros is an erotic or romantic type of love. The next one that people will name, when pressed, is agape. This is more of a communal, or familial, type of love. I've even heard it referred to as "unconditional" love, a term I find particularly amusing. The third Greek love, most people can't recall. Which is sad, since it's the one everyone feels most often, I would say. I'm talking about philia, which is a friendship sort of love. The "City of Brotherly Love," Philadlephia, stems from this term, which is kinda weird. You'd think it would be Agapadelphia, wouldn't you? Leave it to us to screw up proper grammar...
But I digress. Big surprise.
Like many other things, though, love is seldom clearly definable. What happens, you ask, when you feel more than one type of love for the same person? Well, I'm sure there must be a term for a combination of agape and philia. I have members of my family that I consider to be friends, too. I love them as family and I love them as friends. There's that overlap effect. And that overlap happens for the other pair combinations of the three sorts. And, naturally, it's possible to feel all three. Presumably, this triple whammy is what we should feel for a life partner.
All this preamble is essentially a setup for a grandiose stab I'm going to try to make, which is to try to anwer the question, "What is the difference between loving, and being in love?"
I feel I can safely say that we generally don't use the term in love when referring to the states of philia or agape. Many use the term when referring to eros, but I have to wonder if this is actually accurate.
If the only thing we feel for another person is eros, are we really in love with them? Or are we now entering into the areas of infatuations, crushes, and in some cases, obsessions? My thinking says that this is probably the case.
As I know very, very well, obsessions and infatuations can be exceedingly absorbing, self-consuming things. And, while I certainly won't hesitate to call them love, in one form, I don't think it's accurate to say that such states are the same as being in love.
It seems to me that the only thing that distinguishes between loving and being in love is that overlapping mentioned previously. And I would say that it seems to be only the "triple whammy" of having elements of all states, eros, agape, and philia, for one to truly be in love.
Hmm... That question seemed just a wee bit too easy to answer. Quite likely, I'm just full of it. Wouldn't be the first time.
Then again... My skepticism about this simple answer is due entirely to the fact that the answer was simple, once I took a look at it. We are so conditioned to think that things of an emotional nature are "mysteries" that we seldom really do take close looks at them. Like so many things, looking reveals a lot.
Now, there is naturally a second question that begs to be asked at this point. In fact, my wife has already asked it. And that is, "Why do I feel the need to try to explain this?"
Well, it could be because I'm just a really insightful person and one who has a ravenous curiosity and need to understand things, especially things of an emotional/psychological nature.
Or it could be because I'm between jobs and have far too much time to think of such things.