What is Love?

Is there a distinction between loving someone and being “in love?” It seems the answer may be different for different people and different situations. I’ve been in a relationship situation in which I told my partner “I love you,” and they said “I love you too, but I’m not in love with you.” This was at first confusing to me because I had thought they were the same thing and when I said “I love you,” I meant that I was “in love.” 

However, I’ve always been troubled by the fact that it’s such a big deal to say “I love you.” It scares people because they feel pressure to say it back and believe there are all sorts of expectations that come along with it. I’ve felt pressure when someone says it to me first, but I’m generally fine saying it first and being ok with the fact that the other person might not be feeling the same way. It’s my expression of my own personal feelings, not a way to trap the other person into some higher form of mutual obligation. I just want them to know how much I care about them and how warm & fuzzy they make me feel. 

I do acknowledge that there are different forms of love that we have for different categories of people in our lives: friendship love, family love, romantic love. For me, I believe one of the things that has happened is that I haven’t previously dated anyone who has started out as a good friend, so the feelings of caring/excitement/desire have all happened simultaneously, which is why I haven’t needed to distinguish between them in romantic relationships. However, what if you’re dating a good friend with whom you already have some baseline of love and affection for already? What additional needs to happen in order to feel “in love?” It’s not just the added element of sexy times, although I’m sure that can be influential. I suppose it’s just one of those things that you just know when you know.

Also, I came across this interesting article about “casual love”

http://brighterthanabuoy.blogspot.com/2014/01/casual-love.html?m=1

I do think that it would be great if being in love weren’t so scary for people. For me, I don’t seek to love people indiscriminately and honestly my eyes roll a bit about the kinda woo woo idea of “loving everyone,” but I do think that it would be great if expressing romantic love weren’t so loaded and it could mean happy feelings and not obligation and stress.