My ideas on love.

A little over a week ago, @lhorgic listed a contest where people would write what love meant to them. I don't think it was necessary to enter the contest; there are far better participants. As one of the least qualified people in our community to write about love, I held back from talking about it. However, now the contest is over, I don't mind sharing. There are different types of love, there are different stages of love, and there are different ways of expressing love. Ultimately the heights that you can reach will love are dependent on its role in your relationship.

There are different types of love. I love everyone on this planet and beyond. Everyone knows about love one might have for parents or grandparents. You also have a love for friends or comrades. I can think of schoolmates whom I haven't seen for decades that I still retain a fondness for. There are abstract forms of love, like the love of a concept such as a God or unknown strangers. Of course, you kind reader are uninterested in my thoughts on those subjects. You want to know about amour (amore in Italian), the emotion that allows two minds, two hearts, and two souls to join.

If you look at couples who last for decades together, as my parents and grandparents were able to do and analyze various stages of their lives, you would see a familiar pattern. There is a way to measure love, and it is called limerence. It is the number of times or amount of time a person will think of their loved one during the day. It is most commonly commented upon when people are in their earliest infatuation/newlywed stage. After years of being separated from people I have loved, I still occasionally think of them. The first stage of love is an exploratory phase. It is most frequently initiated by hormones like oxytocin, dopamine and serotonin. People who suffer from serial relationships need the "high" they receive from these hormones. As they become accustomed to each other, these levels become lowered due to inhibition, so there isn't a neurological stimulus. As a suggestion, novel stimulus inhibits inhibition. Choosing to plan something new each week will help counteract this problem.

The second stage is a maturation process. Having moved beyond infatuation, couples will have children, and their relationship starts to fulfil higher needs on Maslow's Hierarchy. Regrettably, this period leads to another point commonly referred to as the seven-year itch, an aspect of the third stage.

The third stage is referred to as Disillusionment. Women have limited opportunities for reproduction. After a child is born, it needs the support of both parents for roughly seven years. At that stage, women unconsciously look around for the next suitable father. Historically this was never a thing. Women would have children with their husbands until reproduction was no longer viable. Instead of having ten children, modern couples have access to contraception. It is possibly an instinct that the female will look for alternatives since she is no longer reproducing. In a model I have been promoting for years, relationships are built on three legs: love, trust, and respect. It isn't easy to maintain respect for the person snoring beside you. Let us say the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. Even if the man or the woman wanders, is it because the relationship had previously failed, but the couple hadn't realized it yet? Things that can cause relationships to die are that women will lose respect for their men, and both might lose trust in the other.

For people who survive the third stage, couples can move into a fourth and possibly fifth stage. I cannot correctly describe these stages because I haven't experienced them myself. I can look at my parents and grandparents. Looking at my parents in this picture, you can tell that they are close. It isn't that they are attracted to each other; they are part of each other.

I can remember on a specific occasion we were out with some other people. At the end of the evening, while I was saying goodnight to the rest, my parents went ahead to the car, walking hand in hand. My grandparents shared a similar bond. The hazard of that closeness is that the other died a few months later of broken heart syndrome after one died.

My final thought on the matter is that people in love need to learn how to express love in a way their partner requires. Some people require a verbal expression of love. They need to be reassured of the other's feelings. Others require actions. Occasionally, I would have a Saturday afternoon off, but my ex-wife was working. I would arrive bringing a meal, and we would have an impromptu picnic. Others require gifts. I have known and avoided women like that. One, in particular, had a friend who paid off tens of thousands of dollars of her debt. In my case, I prefer a rare expression of love: time. I have visited a few countries, but the important thing wasn't where I was or what I could see. It was whom I was with.

I am not the one to talk about love. I was once asked what I would like in a woman. I replied, "I would prefer if she were breathing, but I was willing to compromise." I once signed up to one of those online dating sites that did extensive psychological testing. They determined that I wasn't compatible with anyone who lived locally but that I had a good chance with a penguin in Antarctica. What do you think they were trying to say.