On Love

Is love an actual thing or is it just shorthand for multiple emotions? I’ve been pondering this question for a number of years. Let’s go down this rabbit hole.

When you say you “love” someone, what does that mean to you?

I love my wife but also love my friends. I tell my parents I love them along with my niece. I even have a general love for all people. I love each of these groups in different ways but I have found that there is some connection between all of these different types of love.

For me, love is not something that is foundational or scientific like a color. When I say something is red, the only way to describe that without using the word “red” is to compare it to something else. There are different shades of red but there is only one idea behind the word red. If I say that my pen is red and you asked me go into detail, I might say that it is red like the color of an apple or red like the taillight of a car. I guess I could also say my pen reflects light with wavelengths between 625–750 nm and a frequency between 400–484 THz. Though accurate, only very few people would remotely understand that scientific explanation.

Love is different than color for me. Love is an aggregation of five specific feelings, though at different levels for certain types of people in my life.

Here are the five dimensions of love for me:

• Attraction (A)
• Trust (T)
• Romance (Ro)
• Respect (Re)
• Care (C)

Attraction is that magnetic pull a person has on you based on your desire to be around specific attributes. This includes intellect, beauty, humor.

Trust is the level of expectation I have with that person to protect me. This could be physically keeping me from harm, keeping me from financial ruin, helping me stay emotionally stable, keeping my privacy, or holding me accountable to values-driven decision making.

Romance is the desire for intimacy with that person. This can range from the desire for physical touch to lust to building a life-long partnership.

Respect is how much I will take into consideration the other person’s advice, emotional reactions, or life desires when I’m making my own decisions.

Care is how much effort I’m willing to put into fulfilling that person’s desires or working through their emotions.

This is how my love scale works with various people in my life. Note the scale is from -100 to 100 so the midpoint is neutral. Also, the yellow represents the variance of that feeling for that specific type of person. Keep in mind that in the area of romance, on the positive side at the low level is the desire for physical touch (e.g. hugging, holding hands, etc.). These aren’t drawn to true scale and are meant to be representative of the way I view love for different types of people.

How does your love scales look for different people in your life?

I plan to keep playing around with this idea to see where it breaks down or how I can expand on It.