LOVE VS. LUST
Are You Making Love or Fucking?
When you’re intoxicated with dopamine, it blurs emotions and judgment. People can easily convince themselves to be in love as quickly as they snap out of it during the taxi ride home, damning themselves to singledom hell. Anyone who’s blurted a premature “I love you” and received a “thank you,” knows this all too well.
Did I really say that? Did they hear me? Do I even love them?…
Many of us suffer from the love bug and often project emotions because of the ecstasy of those feelings, ignoring the relationship’s reality. The extremity of this is known as pathological love referring to a “pattern of behavior characterized by a maladaptive, pervasive, and excessive interest towards one or more romantic partners, resulting in lack of control, the dismissal of other interests and behavior, and other negative consequences.”
In other words, it’s fun to be addicted to love. The search for the one is almost every person’s favorite pastime, whether desiring intercourse or a wedding ring. We crave and need romantic interaction like oxygen for the soul. Ironically, it offers humanity’s greatest pleasure but demands the work of almost having a second job. Society labels love as optional, then judges anyone without it.
But what happens when you’re having it but don’t know if you have it? No, not Covid-19, I mean love. It feels like making love, but it’s been, as the young say, only a minute since you’ve known your partner. The intensity of how a partner feels about you will almost always translate into the bedroom. It is why the most reported symptom of an affair is a gradual reduction of interest in physical intimacy.
But beyond penetration, it’s in the intimate details of your intimacy, such as the way they stop you from leaving, how attentive they are to your pleasure.
More importantly, are your interactions post-sex. Does your planning go beyond lube and condom brand? Commitment in a relationship begins to happen when horny is not the only feeling that summons each other’s company. So when you witness something funny or hear crazy gossip, are they the first person you want to tell?
If you love someone, you care to know who that person is. So ask yourself, how well do you know your partner? Can you name his/her favorite food or where they grew up? Also, are you still swiping on Tinder? Monogamy doesn’t define being in love, but actively dating others signifies you probably haven’t found it.
Simply put: if what you like most about the other person and relationship is the sex, then it’s lust. If your affection includes worrying about their wellbeing, what they ate for lunch, how their sibling is doing, and if their existence meshes with yours, then put on your seatbelt. You’re about to embark on the turbulent journey known as love.
