I Love You* * Conditions Apply

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Is love without passion possible !? Is passion without love possible !? Will that be called lust !? At some times, in our lives we find ourselves pondering over these intangible questions. These questions are hard to answer because the answers depends on one’s perception of these imperceptible human emotions like love, passion and lust. I have always found it hard to draw a line which separates love and passion from each other. I have always considered that they co-exist together for a meaningful relationship or in other words, that they co-exist together in a relationship for it to have some meaning really.

However, I have realized, that my notion of co-existence of love and passion was based on my perception of viewing love as in from a romantic angle. If I were to define the wider definition of love, I would say that love has got three components – mental intimacy, physical intimacy and commitment.

Mental intimacy refers to closeness one feels in terms of being able to understand each others thought process or being able to predict each others behavior. Friendship could be said to be dominated by this component of love. Physical intimacy means the attraction to the other person sexually or in other words, attraction driven by our desires. Infatuation could be described as a kind of love where this physical intimacy is the most dominating component. Commitment is perhaps the component, defining which I find it hardest to articulate. Commitment could be defined as the feeling which makes you think that you would willingly like to stick through thin and thick phases of the other person, support the other person during the bad times and rejoice in their success and celebrate it as your own during the good times. Usually, arranged marriages begin with commitment(forced by marriage) component of love and then progresses to achieve other components of love.

Based on the above described classification, I would consider a relationship driven by physical intimacy component as lust if it is a mutual affair, or as infatuation if it is a one-sided affair. And finally coming to passion, I perceive it as a relationship where physical intimacy is dominating with mental intimacy hidden behind the perceptible layers.

Defining intrinsic human emotions intricately is not easy. And sometimes, it is in our best interests that we do not try to classify our feelings or emotions. Although, the classification is really fuzzy, our intellect will reason us to label our emotions which is often not required.

P.S : Experience is a wonderful feeling. It enables you to recognise a mistake when you make it again hence at crossroads of life, one has OPTIONS ;-)

I Love You*

*Conditions Apply