What is love?

When it comes to love, many people will think of romantic and heartwarming scenes, until
the day I watched the movie “what does love means to you” by windshield wiper, it give me
a different way to think.
In this film, all the theme correcting love in different short story and the roles of love in
many situation in our daily: fall in love, heartbreak by love, cyberlove, finding the true love,
love during the sex ,the product of love, homosexual…etc. In the end , the man from the
beginning of the film talk to the spectator : “love is a secret society.”
If we trying to do categories the love we could find at least 6 types: Non love,
Liking/friendship, Infatuated love, Empty love, Romantic love, Companionate love and
Fatuous love. Those themes you can also find in Robert Jeffrey Sternberg’s Love Triangle
Theory.
In 1986, psychologist Robert Steinberg published his famous 'Love Triangle Theory' in the
Psychological Review, making geometric assumptions about love. According to the love
triangle theory, love consists of three components:
"Intimacy' - consists of a strong sense of caring, closeness, constraint and a sense of
connection.
"Passion' - consists of what drives people to fall in love, to be attracted to each other and to
engage in sexual activity.
"Commitment' - includes a willingness to spend time with the other person in the short term
and to maintain love in the long term.
The degree of love for another person is primarily determined by the absolute strength of
these components; the type of love for another person is determined by the relative
strength of these components. These three components can be thought of as triangles,
which interact with each other to give rise to many different categories of love. The size of
the triangle represents the degree of love, with the larger the triangle the more love there is
for the other person. The shape of the triangle represents the type of love, and is generally
divided into the 'passion stage' ,the 'intimacy stage' and the 'commitment stage' . These
three elements can form seven different combinations of love: 6 of 7 present in the film, but
the only one they didn’t realize is “the Consummate love”.
The ideal relationship to which people aspire. Among the seven variants of love, perfect love
is the love that "perfect lovers" have. According to Stenberg, these lovers stay in a good
relationship even after they have been in love for 15 years or more. They could not have
imagined spending such a long time with anyone else, working hand in hand and shoulder to
shoulder to gracefully solve a series of difficulties and enjoy every second of their time
together.
However, Sternberg cautions that maintaining a perfect love is more difficult than it seems.
He emphasizes the importance of translating the elements of love into practical action. He
claims that "without affection, any great love will pass away." If passion passes with time,
affection will become companionate love. Perfect love is one of the most enjoyable forms of
adult intercourse because it combines each piece of the triangle to become this kind of love.
It is the ideal form of emotional relationship. This emotional relationship can be presented
as the ideal relationship after a long time or in a film.
Sternberg's theory of the three causes of love provides a solid foundation for his subsequent
theory of love - love as story. In this theory, he explains that many unique and different love
stories convey different ways of understanding love. He believed that, as practice developed,
this exposure would help one to determine what love is and what love should be:
"Relationships that have the best durability and satisfaction are those in which partners
often work to maintain intimacy and increase mutual responsibility.”

“Love is a multi-faceted thing. Love lifts us up to where we need to be. All you need is love!"
This is probably the general idea that people think the love and would do anything and
everything to be together, However, with over 7 billion people on this planet, not everyone
will have the same definition for this term. Love is a very diverse word. Everyone needs it in
one way or another and therefore everyone has their own definition of what 'love' means to
them.

WU Fei

Bonus: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEXWRTEbj1I