What is love? The dictionary defines it as the “precious, delightful, admirable, and wonderful emotion that exists in humans and which induces people to love each other.” From this straightforward definition, it is easy to see that love encompasses a wide range of positive and strong psychological and emotional states, from the highest sublime ideal, the most intense personal intimacy, to the easiest pure joy.
In addition to the definition above, “love” can also be used in three major or fundamental love languages. These include physical, mental, and emotional love. Each language can be defined as a unique way of expressing one’s affection for another person, or for a particular type of activity.
Physical love means the physical attraction that you feel toward your partner. Emotional love means more than just feeling a strong bond with your partner but feeling all the various emotions that are associated with love. Mental love means thinking about your partner with your whole mind instead of just your heart, and being able to experience those feelings. And emotional love means having real connections with another person. True love is an emotional connection with another person, rather than just a physical connection.
The quality time that you spend with another person is another important quality of romantic love. Romantic love does not mean spending every waking moment together in romance. It means time spent doing things with another person, whether they are taking a walk, getting dressed, laughing at jokes, or just being together. Just being with someone is a form of intimacy, as is spending time communicating with him or her in any other forms of intimacy. Having the time together that is needed to do the activities that are shared creates a special kind of intimacy between the partners.
An additional quality of intimacy is giving affection. This often means cuddling, kissing, hugging, or even fondling. As I mentioned above, affection is a key component of romantic love. It is the positive emotions that arise from loving another person. And being able to give affection to another person can be a powerful form of intimacy.
Emotional intimacy is what most couples experience when they first start dating, even if it is just sexual attraction. When a couple is deeply in love, they spend more time together and become friends more quickly than they would if their relationship was purely physical. Even if the couple stops having romantic love, they are still intensely connected through feelings of affection and intimacy. So, whether you’re dating someone to get married to, or you’re just in love with each other romantically, intimacy is the glue that holds the relationship together. So, make sure you remember the qualities I have listed today.