It's just a four-letter word, but it's said that it's the most commonly used word amongst teens, and often the most well-understood and yet the most mis-understood one as well.

What is this thing called love? Why do we search for it? Why can't we figure it out even if we find it? Can love in its passionate form endure? If not, what can replace it?

In the last issue we discussed the phenomenon called attraction. In that we described the whys and hows of the powerful pull one person has for another. Now we take this issue further. What does a person do after the initial feeling of being attracted? How and why does this particular attraction culminate into a stronger emotion of love? And further on, how does this feeling of love and the resulting bond lead to a long-term commitment, often ending in marriage; or why it gets lost into nothingness.

All Kinds Of Love

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways...
-E B Browning

Different people talk about love in different ways-the feeling is the same, but the expressions differ. When a close friend of mine-let's call him Ajay-fell in love with a girl from his class during his school days, the only way he could express it was by way of flooring her with flowers. Each time he met her, he would present her with a rose, a red one or a white one and so on. The girl would acknowledge and reciprocate his emotions by way of penning poetry each time they met.

Both loved each other, but their way of expression was different. One was a physical form-the gifting of flowers. The other was abstract-the coining of verses.

Social psychologists describe love as a triangle with three sides-Passion, Intimacy and Commitment (as the diagram above depicts). They describe these emotions like the primary colours, and the combos form secondary love styles, much like secondary colours. Don't confuse it with the love triangle of Hindi movies!

The Chemistry Of Love

Psychologists believe that everyone has a vague image of his or her lover, like a jigsaw puzzle in the mind. We all have a base level of some minimum number of pieces that initiate an emotional response. If they are fulfilled, then the emotional reaction of feeling in love occurs, since our brain is programmed to release certain chemicals that make us feel the emotion.

When a person crosses this base level, or threshold, for you, a chemical response takes place in the brain, making you feel that passionate, very intense form of love. This response may fade away with time, affecting the relationship. But, if another biochemical change occurs, one that releases another substance, which maintains a baseline plateau, then the relationship endures, maintained by what is called compassionate love.

This biochemical process is universal, and all of us are programmed to feel like this. So, each time you come across a person and feel intense passion, you need to wait for some time before you jump into commitment, and then if in a few weeks you still feel the emotion in a sustained way, only then get into the relationship. You need to test the kind of biochemical response that your body is giving for someone-is it the passionate or compassionate form of love? Is it a short-term or a long-term feeling, that develops in you?

So, those of you who feel they fall in love with every other person in their lives, well, you are normal, but wait for the one who will be able to maintain this emotional response of yours.

Passionate Love

Love conjures up the picture of passionate or romantic love, which involves intense feeling and interest in another person with relatively high states of physical arousal. Passionate love, in other words, is emotional, exciting and a state of intense longing for union with another. One feels joy if this experience is reciprocated, or despair, if it is not reciprocated.

Ajay went through this with his girlfriend. He was somewhat infatuated, and so was she. Together they were wild. Till one day, Ajay went through a personal tragedy, and realised that his girlfriend was not there to support him. This not only ended their intense relationship, but changed him, too. The next woman he met, he was a different man, testing the waters before plunging into a long term bond.

Passionate lovers are absorbed in one another, ecstatic at attaining their partner's love, and disconsolate on losing it. This intense feeling is very normal, all of us go through it, so there is no need to question oneself and feel guilty or abnormal about it. For the mathematical minded, the theory of emotion is: Arousal x Label = Emotion

Arousal is like a physiological change, like euphoria over a cricket match, or stress in the family, or appreciation of a film or fights with friends and most often, exam fever. (During exams, most teens tend to feel their love is at a peak! Not just feelings, but the beginning of relations also peak during times of arousal).

Our liking and disliking of people is influenced by the events they are associated with. When we are disturbed and come across someone, we label this emotional arousal to this person and give it a name-love.

In Ajay's case, the girl (the second one whom he eventually married) had mentally labeled him as the guy giving her the love for flowers (in fact, that was why a wild man like Ajay toned himself down to presenting flowers; she had told him she loved roses. Ajay got a rose for her each time they met. One day he did not turn up for a rendezvous with her because he could not find a decent flower!). On the other hand, she helped Ajay to come out of his personal tragedy and his own why-did-I-do-it feeling arising out of the bad experience he had with the first girlfriend. Thus, the relationship went on and is still going great guns!

Companionate Love

Though passionate love burns hot, it inevitably simmers down. The high of romance may sustain for a few months, even years, but not forever. The intense absorption in the other, the thrill of the romance, the giddy 'floating on a cloud' feeling, fades. After two years of the best of relationships, partners express intensity half as often. If a relationship is to endure, it will settle to a steadier and warm afterglow-companionate love. Unlike the wild emotions of passionate love, companionate love is a deep, affectionate attachment. The cooling of intense romantic love triggers off disillusion. In the long run, what makes people keep feeling love are factors other than initial attraction and intense longing for union. Like, in the case of Ajay with his second girlfriend.

How To Keep Love

Many factors influence the ups and downs of love, but with the right effort, it is very possible.

ATTACHMENT

We need a secure attachment source which is there for us during crises, giving us solace. This is true for all ages. If a relationship provides a secure base, a feeling of attachment, it's more likely to succeed. Like Ajay found a sense of security with his second gf.

HAPPINESS

It is one thing to be in love but what is more important is to make the partner feel happiness with you, and your own happiness in the relationship. Ajay's second gf, later his wife, would make him happy by reading poetry meant especially for him.

FUN

Memories. We tend to remember our relationships on the basis of the nature of time we spend with each other, and only if there were positive times that you have shared with your partner (romantic talk, doing something which both of you like, for instance, window shopping or eating at a fastfood joint or going to a disc), then there will be happy memories of the relationship.

That's why it's important to take breaks, go out, have fun times together frequently, it all adds up to love!

Rewards Of The Relationship

We tend to be attracted to a thing or a person or an event that guarantees us certain emotional rewards. This makes us feel good about ourselves. In longterm relationships, self-esteem becomes a very important factor. A person who doesn't feel good about himself or herself can't sustain a relationship unless he/ she is made to feel confident, good about himself/herself-and the relationship raises their self-esteem. To maintain a relationship we need to make an effort to make our partner feel good about him or herself, while allowing them their space and maintaining their self-esteem.

Both Ajay and his second girlfriend were there for each other, supportive of each other's personalities-of both the positive and negative aspects-and did wonderful things together and in the process allowed each other their own space and maintained each other's self-esteem.

Self Disclosure

The more we speak about our intimate aspects, our feelings, and ourselves, to the partner, the closer we feel to each other. Self-disclosure bridges distances and maintains close relationships.

Even today Ajay tells me that the best thing he ever did was to share his negatives and his own depressions with his second girlfriend. This process gave his so much peace of mind that he almost felt that she was he himself. And later on, it was so much easier for him to understand her personal problems and he was always there to support her whenever she needed it. Because he had made himself known to her and allowed himself to understand he.