We've
all experienced love. We've loved (and been loved by) parents, brothers,
sisters, friends, even pets. But romantic love is different. It's an intense,
new feeling unlike any of these other ways of loving.
Loving
and being loved adds richness to our lives. When people feel close to others
they are happier and even healthier. Love helps us feel important, understood,
and secure.
But
each kind of love has its own distinctive feel. The kind of love we feel for a
parent is different from our love for a baby brother or best friend. And the
kind of love we feel in romantic relationships is its own unique type of love.
Our
ability to feel romantic love develops during adolescence. Teens all over the
world notice passionate feelings of attraction. Even in cultures where people
are not allowed to act on or express these feelings, they're still there. It's
a natural part of growing up to develop romantic feelings and sexual
attractions to others. These new feelings can be exciting — or even confusing
at first.
The Magical Ingredients
of Love Relationships
Love
is such a powerful human emotion that experts are constantly studying it.
They've discovered that love has three main qualities:
ATTRACTION is the
"chemistry" part of love. It's all about the physical — even sexual —
interest that two people have in each other. Attraction is responsible for the
desire we feel to kiss and hold the object of our affection. Attraction is also
what's behind the flushed, nervous-but-excited way we feel when that person is
near.
CLOSENESS is the bond that
develops when we share thoughts and feelings that we don't share with anyone
else. When you have this feeling of closeness with your boyfriend or
girlfriend, you feel supported, cared for, understood, and accepted for who you
are. Trust is a big part of this.
COMMITMENT is the promise or
decision to stick by the other person through the ups and downs of the
relationship.
These
three qualities of love can be combined in different ways to make different
kinds of relationships. For example, closeness without attraction is the kind
of love we feel for best friends. We share secrets and personal stuff with
them, we support them, and they stand by us. But we are not romantically
interested in them.
