What is love?

 Listen to Mariah Carrey vision of Love

  Rivers of ink and terabytes of blog posts have been written on the subject of defining love this most complex of human relationships and for many the keystone of human happiness. The one I favor most belogs to Robert Sternberg and is based on 3 pillars

1) Intimacy, or the deep emotional connection found among best friends, sharing mutual values and life goals. This is probably the one we feel earliest in life, when lifelong friendships are forged even starting in kindergarten. Unfortunately, later in adolescence, it may usually confuse boys in thinking that the connection shared with a girl may be the start of something more complex (and cause them to try to jump the friend ladder to the lover ladder). In my opinion, it's probably the most difficult part of love to attain. 

2) Commitment, is the conscious decision to make the relationship last through thick and thin. It's the "till death do us part" for a couple or the promise to be there for each other you made to your BFF back in 5th grade. Being a conscious decision, I would expect this to be the easiest one to achieve. 

3) Passion, the unconscious physical attraction or lust for another, something that only needs the sight of the other to appear and cause butterflies in the other one's stomach. Unfortunately, as easy as it appears it can disappear, with most authors giving it a lifespan of 2 or 3 years. Maybe I'm lucky to still be feeling the same after 16 years alongside my better half. 

When all three of the pillars, there is consummate love, the stuff every romance writer dreams about, the stuff that makes marriages really last for more than 50 years until death does part of the time. Unfortunately, such perfection isn't usually found on the first try, and earlier attempts involve either one or just a combination of the 2 pillars. Of course, relationships can start with one of the pillars then develop to include the 2 others and back again. 

If only commitment is present, with no passion or intimacy, we have Empty love , but this should be something confined to history books when the princess was married to a neighbouring king to strengthen an alliance

If only passion is there, then there is infatuation. It's the crush you have on the girl you saw in the hallway and have never spoken to and don't know her name or anything about. It's what leads to one-night stands (other than alcohol or other drugs). It's probably our first recollection of romantic love relationships and it's not necessarily one-sided, with both partners only sharing this specific common ground. 

Liking is a platonic relationship based on Intimacy, only in this case, it's between 2 partners that could possibly end up romantically linked, not just between same-sex friends as it's usually the case. As said before, when it does happen, it may lead one of the participants to hope that passion can follow and ask for more hoping that passion can also follow. 

Moving up to both pillars present, we have Romantic Love, where Intimacy and Passion are present, probably the case for most short and mid-term relationships. In my own case, it was the type of relationship I had with the one I won't be able to forget, but in the end, it failed as the passion I felt for her was unrequited, even if we both valued the Intimacy we had shared and we probably long fore after a lot of time has passed even if both of us have found our lifelong partners. 

Fatuous love was excellently described in Gabriel García Márquez' "Love in time of the cholera" where a young man consumed by infatuation never-ending swears never-ending love to her and makes good on his promise 50 years later. It's a stupendous display of devotion but a waste nevertheless. 

Companionate Love is a wonderful relationship to have as long as both partners don't nurture any repressed romantic feelings and consider it platonic. Even if the relationship is platonic, the appearance of a romantic interest in any of the friends' lives may see this relationship as threatening their own shared intimacy, it needs strict limits to survive.

May you be loved with consummate love!