Is it love, or infatuation?
Many times people confuse the notion of infatuation with love, and so when they “feel” a particular way about more than one person, they go crazy thinking they are in love with so and so. But it’s important to know the distinction between love and infatuation.
If you ask the people around you what love is, they will say that love is a feeling that can’t be described. But love is not a feeling; not an emotion. It is rather an intangible journey that you live – it is something you do. Love is a decision.
Now you can love everyone, but you can’t be in love with more than one person. Love is something you do by choice. You wake up every morning and you choose if you should forgive someone by loving them and if you desire to hate, nothing can alter that. Love doesn’t force you to do something, it makes you decide. It allows you to choose.
When you are “in love”, on another hand, it forces you to do things freely that you never saw yourself doing. Being in love requires a deep intimacy between two souls that takes you beyond the universe and into a world where it is you and your lover. It innately requires loyalty, trust and sex that ties your body.
How do you know you are in love?
• You know you are in love with someone when you put their wants before your priorities.
• You know you are in love when you see it necessary to be 100 per cent open about who you are and to never lie or withhold information.
• You know you are in love when you see it as an extreme necessity to be 100 per cent faithful to one individual.
• You know you are in love when you see a future with this one individual.
• You know you are in love when you make love to this person, and your body instantly becomes one with him/her. You feel a deep connection that goes beyond pleasure.
Being in love is not a choice. When you meet this person, you are drawn in such a manner that you know it is not infatuation but love because you are ready to sacrifice your very life for this person without hesitation.
Infatuation is often mistaken for being in love as it shares some of the same characteristics, but it undermines real, intimate love. Infatuation has one powerful factor that differentiates it from intimate love – infatuation dies.
Have you ever met someone you thought you would marry because you were so drawn to them, but within a month or two that ended? Simply put, it wasn’t intimate love.
How else can you tell it’s infatuation?
•You know you are infatuated when you think every minute about the person.
• You know you are infatuated when you always want to be around the person.
• You know you are infatuated when you call the person just to say “hi” and nothing more.
• You know you are infatuated when you get jealous knowing the person may be around someone else.
We all get this feeling at the conception of a relationship and we conclude that we are in love when truth be told, we are just obsessed with something new.
You cannot be in love with two people; you can, however, be infatuated with ten different persons.
