LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE An in-depth look at the four different kinds of love
Aimee Ortiz | Staff Writer
L
ove is powerful. Love is the essence and true common core of what we are all comprised. Without which, there’s no purpose for anything, really. In reality, it is a word often tossed around to describe your affection for almost everything. “I love my new shirt.” “I love tacos.” “I love my job” “I love my boyfriend/girlfriend.” “I love every song from Frozen” “I love...” now you finish the sentence. Love |luhv| noun 1 an intense feeling of deep affection: That is the first definition of love. Other definitions apply to our endearment to objects, trivial things, and also a term for a bad tennis score. I understand, the spirit of Valentine is in our midst, and a lot of us want our grim relationship to hold out until then, maybe we just lost our Valentine, maybe we’re hopelessly in love with our Valentine, maybe we don’t want/have one. Now, love is a word and emotion tossed by wind. Also know that true love is complicated to understand. In ancient Greece, they knew this. That’s why they interpreted love four different ways to describe any intimacy, passion, or infatuation. Philia (fa-lee-uh) That natural affection you have for your friends and the affection you should have for all other people--is philia.
This is more with friendship, but it is also a “practical love.” This type of love is used to describe our affection towards friends, acquaintances and the community. You are responsible for giving this type of love to everyone. I mean, everyone. We weren’t born to hate. We were born to love one another. Including the woman who cut you in line at Starbucks, the one always spitting out racist jokes, and the one who has spread rumors about you. Philia is only a love of kindness. Everyone is a victim of something, and you have no idea what someone is facing; love is the basis of all understanding. Now think about the love you have towards your friends. They know you. No matter where they’re from, how often you talk, we cannot live without friends. Studies show that not having friends has equivalent health risks to smoking. We need each other. Having a friend allows us to connect to others and tell them we love them-we philia them...I know, it sounds silly. Storge (store-gaye) Storge means that even when you’re arguing, bickering, rebelling, crying, or laughing, you’re parents love you and you love them. Almost like “ohana,” which, as we all may know, means: family. And family means no one gets left behind. You’ve probably heard your parents tell you that the minute you came into their lives, the minute they saw you, the minute they held you in their arms, they were in love with you. All your life, they
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watched you grow up and mess up, but no matter what they never stopped loving you. Storge is unconditional. Though, if you’re anything like a teenager, times arrive when you feel like this isn’t always true. There are times when storge is missing: times when you’re so angry at your parents, you swear you hate them and times when you swear they hate you. But you know this is never true--or at least you should. Storge is always present. Storge is also love within family in general. A lot of us have siblings. We’re known to often not get along so graciously with them. However, keep in mind: because we have a sibling, we always have a friend. It’s your choice whether or not you make them one. Eros (air-oh-s) Like all of these types of love, eros is powerful. Eros is a true, passionate, emotional type of love without the balance of logic. Again, without logic. This can be used to describe romantic relationships. Eros makes you feel like you’re on cloud nine, an adrenaline rush, if you will. Also known as, “stupid love,” but you can’t argue that it is a truly terrible feeling, because it’s not. Being in a relationship may deceive you into thinking that you’re in love, when you just might be in eros. It’s not enough to just be in eros with someone. Without all these other types of love, eros won’t last. Like storge, eros doesn’t mean unconditional. You have to make eros unconditional. Here we have two love birds: lover boy is desperately infatuated