Concept of Love Essay

Love is a complex emotion of attachment and sometimes obsession. It cannot be classified so easily, though; it cannot be stuffed into a social concept and left there. Some people search for what seems their whole lifetime for love, whereas others may seem to fall in and out of love on a regular basis. Of course, people can love many things, but the love between two people is unique and special. It is a feeling of trust and wholeness. Love is rarely defined because everyone experiences it differently. What one person thinks is love, another may think is craze or vice versa. How does one know he or she is in love? How is it possible to distinguish between the love of romance and the love shared between friends? In order to understand love, people need to first understand the two major types of love which can be described as romantic love and friendship love. People often define romantic love based on its difference from friendship love. Would you kiss your best friend? Perhaps, but it is not necessarily the things you do with your romantic partner that makes your love spark. Romantic lovers are usually on each other’s minds all the time. Couples make large life decisions based on their romantic partners because they cannot imagine life without those people. Romantic love guides a person’s mind and can sometimes cloud it as to what the right decisions might be. After all, romantic love can be extremely selfless. Friendship love can often turn into romantic love, as it has many times throughout history, but the birth of romantic love between friends will often kill the love of friendship. In other words, friends who become romantic lovers rarely can go back to being â€Å"just friends. Why is it that romantic love is so overpowering? The love of friendship can be very strong, but it is the emotional intensity of romantic love that forever changes the simplicity of the love between friends. Friendship love does not have all the same guidelines that romantic love seems to have. Each friend couple may have a unique kind of love between each other. Friendship love is best described as a warm feeling between people. Girlfriends may have different friendship love for each other than a male and female friend pair may have; the same for male friends. Male and Female friends may sometimes undergo a lot of pressure from other friends and family to turn their friendship love into romantic love, which doesn’t always work. There is a line that friends may cross over, and to know that line is to know the difference between romantic and friendship love. Friends have complete trust for someone and naturally want to be around him/her. People who love each other want to make each other happy; they want to be there as confidants, helpers, and company. Friendship love is often compared to the love between siblings as well. In many cases, a sibling is just as good a friend as any. Society will not accept romantic love between relatives, but friendship love is encouraged and an amazing aspect to have. Everybody experiences love in a different way and may not agree with the concepts that it is dealt with. In the end, it does not matter whether or not the kind of love someone feels fits into any category. Love is personal, and the important thing is, is that it makes people happy and feels cared for. Whether people have romantic or friendship love, love is meant to mean that it is an emotion of a strong affection and personal attachment, and a virtue representing all of human kindness, compassion, and affection.