Chapter 7 Interpersonal Relationship: Love

Love Types
Eros: Beauty and Sexuality

Like Narcissus, who fell in love with the beauty of his own image, the erotic lover focuses on beauty and physical attractiveness, sometimes to the exclusion of qualities you might consider more important and more lasting.

Ludus: Entertainment and Excitement
Ludus love is experienced as a game, a fun. The better you can play the game, the greater the enjoyment. A ludic lover is self- controlled, always aware of the need to manage love rather than allow it to be control. Perhaps because of this need to control love, some researches have proposed that ludic love tendencies may reveal tendencies to sexual aggression. Perhaps because love is a game, sexual fidelity is of little importance. And not surprisingly, ludic lovers score high on narcissism.

Storge: Peaceful and slow

Storge love (a word that come from Greek for "familial love") lacks passion and intensity. Storgic lovers don't set out to find lovers but to establish a companionable relationship with someone they know and with whom they can share interests and activities. Storgic love is a gradual process of unfolding thoughts and feelings; the changes seem to come so slowly and so gradually that it's often difficult to define exactly where the relationship is at any point in time. Sex in storgic relationships come late, and when it comes, it assumes no great importance.

Pragma: Practical and traditional

Pragma lovers want compatibility and a relationship in which their important needs and desires will be satisfied. The pragma lover views love as a useful relationship that makes the rest of life easier. So the pragma lover asks such questions: "Will this person earn a good living?" "Can this person cook?" "Will this person help me advance in my career?"

Mania: Elation and depression

Mania is characterized by extreme highs and extreme lows. The manic lover intensely worried about the loss of the love. With little provocation, the manic lover may experience extreme jealousy. Manic love is obsessive, the manic lover must possess the beloved completely. In turn, the manic lover wishes to be possessed, to be love intensely. The manic lover's poor self- images seems capable of being improved only by love; self- worth comes from being loved rather than from any sense of the inner satisfaction. Because love is so important, dangers sign in a relationship are often ignored; the manic lover believes that if there is love, then nothing else matters.

Agape: Compassionate and selfless

Agape is a compassionate, ego less, self- giving love. The agapic lovers love even people with whom he or she has no close ties. This lover loves the stranger on the road even though the two of them probably will never meet again. Agape is a spiritual love, offered without expecting that the love will be reciprocated. Jesus, Buddha and Gandhi preached this unqualified love, agape.

General point of view of love from Renaldo

I believe that there not just one type of love in us but all. It just depends on which is diminating. For example, a mother can have an agape love towards her children but with her husband, certain activities that a married couple do come's from eros. Also, that mother might have choosen to settle down with her husband could also be based on Pragma love. So we cannot say that, ' i have no ludus love in me or mania love.' Because in truth, we do.