Five types of Love

Romantic love --this lover thinks constantly about the loved one, is jealous, unrealistic, will tolerate anything, is sexually attracted by physical appearance, needs repeated reassurance he/she is loved in return. Typically lasts a few months or a few years (some anthropologists say it lasts 4 years, i.e. until the baby is through nursing and can walk and run. Then the love bond releases the more powerful males to find another female to impregnate with his genes.)

Best friend or companionate love --this lover enjoys the companionship and intimacy of a close friendship. It is a comfortable, slowly developing, trusting, committed relationship, not intense excitement, desperation, or sexual obsessions.

Unselfish love --the lover is devoted and self-sacrificing to the loved one, gives without expecting anything in return, is gentle, caring, and dutiful.

Logical love--the lover carefully selects the "right person" logically, looking for someone with compatible interests, similar education and religion, a harmonious personality, common values, and long-term goals.

Game-playing love --this person may be charming but is hardly a lover; he/she merely enjoys the dating game. He/she relishes the meeting, the impressing, the seducing, the challenge of a conquest but usually makes it clear there is little or no long-term commitment to the other person.

There are other kinds of loves and lovers, of course, like the one who searches for a physical ideal--a great body or some specific bodily feature--or the one who is so possessive he/she wants to control the other person and gets physically sick or depressed or does foolish things when the relationship seems threatened."

According to Lasswell and Lobsenz, best friends partnerships work well, so do two logical lovers or a best friend-logical combination.

What are likely to be mismatches?

A romantic and a best friend (or a logical) lover may have problems because they certainly do not show love in the same ways. One wants to be wooed with candlelight dinners and passionate love-making; the other wants to have a quiet evening at home reading and planning a trip or a new house.

Even a romantic lover may not please another romantic; indeed, romantic lovers will be unhappy if they do not find new ways to show love after three or four years when the thrills and sexual throbs have subsided .

Likewise, the combination of a possessive and a best friend will be a clash of styles--one stormy and one easy going. If the possessive is gone for a while, she/he will be bothered that the best friend didn't miss her/him more, 'If you loved me, you would have missed me a lot!'

As one would expect, game players and possessive lovers are hard for anyone to love.

Many lovers don't clarify what they need; they expect the lover to read their minds.

They hesitate to say, 'You can do this ______ to make me feel loved' and eventually end up saying, 'When you do this ______ I know you don't love me.

The above information is excerpted from an article at Mental Help.Net