The Many Shades of Love

The Many Shades of Love 

By Jodi Jones

The questions brought to my attention a few months ago were “what is love?” and “how do you know if you love someone?”  After months of thought, I found a comprehensive answer to this question.  There are a few points to remember when considering love though.  First, love is a feeling. It is not a relationship or a marriage or a friendship. It is a deep feeling inside one’s heart.  Second, to be “in love” with someone and to “love” someone are two different feelings.  Third, in order to love, one has to have the capacity to truly and genuinely love another person before they can fall in love.  Believe it or not, there are actually people out there who don’t have that ability. 

There are different kinds of love but in this instances, I am referring to romantic love, or to be “in love” with someone.  I’m not talking about the kind of love we feel for our parents, children, or pets, or favorite foods, movies, or actors. 

True love is very deep. It is not a shallow feeling and it doesn’t come easily.  You can’t quickly come into love and you don’t quickly fall out of love with someone.  I remember girls in high school, writing all over their notebooks I love so-n-so; only to dump that person and find a new boyfriend and then they’d have to scratch out the first guy’s name. You don’t truly love someone that quickly, and that’s why adults always scoff at teenagers “in love”.  That’s basically no more than liking someone. 

True love requires trust and understanding. Love is complicated. Love is not that someone doesn’t get on your nerves.  It’s not that simple, and everyone is going to get on your nerves if you spend enough time with them.  Yet you can’t truly love someone until you spend a lot of time with that person.  Anyone can be fake for a few hours a day or a few hours a week.  Anyone can pretend to be something they’re not for a while, but they can’t pretend forever, so eventually, the real person will come to the surface.  And when you truly love someone, you will love the real person.

            You can easily love the “idea” of a person.  You can easily love being in love.  You can easily love certain qualities about a person. You can love their “thoughtfulness” or their “understanding” or “compassion”.  But they may also be selfish, cranky or downright cold sometimes.  But to love someone means to love the real person and to love the whole person.  You can’t only love someone when they are happy or in a good mood.  To love someone is to love them for who they really are, and to love them on good days and bad days, in good moods and bad moods.  Love is true and faithful and never-ending. Love is kind and patient.  Love is not selfish; it is selfless.  Love is not a material possession either. You can’t love someone for their money, status, or job in life.  If that’s the case then you really just love money, status or job titles and not the real person.  Love means loving that person if they had nothing or if they had everything.  When you love someone, you don’t want anything material from them.  That’s not why you love them.  You love them because you accept them for who they are. 

            Love is not flaky and it’s not like a mood swing. It doesn’t just come and go.  Love isn’t something that you say just because the other person said it.  Love doesn’t lose interest in you. Love doesn’t leave you just because you’re not feeling well today.  Love changes and doesn’t always stay the same, but it’s not shallow.  You can fall in and out of love with someone, but genuine love never ends.  True love doesn’t end.  Love means putting that person’s happiness above your own.  You want that person to be happy whether they are with you or not with you.  Love means wanting the person to be successful – not for what it means for you but for what it will mean for them.  Love means putting the other person’s needs ahead of your own needs.  If they need something that you have the ability to give, then you will give it – not even consciously. And it won’t upset you that you have to give it because you want to give it.  You want to give them anything that you have simply because you truly love them.  Love means meeting that other person’s needs as they strive to meet your needs. 

Love doesn’t happen over night. It takes time to develop because then you will get to know the real person and you will see if you love that true person or if you merely loved the idea of that person.  Love doesn’t require you to change who you are. Love accepts you for who you are.  Love is not easy but it should not be hard.  Love takes work and it takes nourishment, it takes sacrifice and compromise.  Love should add to your life – not take away from your life through changing.  Love shouldn’t be your whole life either; it’s a part of your life.  Love is not who you are.  Love requires work and sacrifice, but if it is what you want, then it is not a job or a chore to you.  The reward of being in love and being loved by the person that you love makes everything that you do while with them worth every second of it.  Love requires give and take with both people giving and both taking.  Love cannot last if one person is always giving while they other person is always taking.  It’s good for the taker, but the giver will eventually get tired of giving and the relationship will end or the giver will seek his/her needs to be met elsewhere.  Love is not good sex, although the best sex happens with the person you are deeply and truly in love with.  All couples come to a point where the sex gets old, routine, and boring. If you truly love the person then you will do what is required to make it better for both of you, and it will not be bad for you.

Sacrifices aren’t really sacrifices when you do them for the person that you love.

Love is not jealous – people are jealous.  Love requires that you trust the other person and you trust his/her love for you.  You can’t truly and wholeheartedly love someone that you do not trust. 

Love is not hard, but worthwhile.  Love is never easy but it is the most wonderful thing with the right person.  Love is strange and sometimes impossible.  Everyone wants to feel loved, but not everyone wants to put forth the effort required to love another person.  Love is different from anything else in the world, yet it is the best thing in the world also.  True love takes a long time to develop.  It is easy to get feelings for someone or to like someone, but when you love them, it’s very different from just liking them. 

To love them requires that you love them all the time, not just sometimes.  Just because you love someone doesn’t mean that everyday is going to be like a fairy tale.  Reality is that few days are like fairy tales. It is very hard to grasp what it means to truly love another person and to truly be in love with another person.

True love isn’t something that you seek out. It isn’t something that you force. It isn’t something that you deceive the other person into feeling.  It isn’t something that you can force on someone.  For someone to truly love you, you must love yourself as well.  You must know that you are a wonderful person and not need someone else to tell you that you are wonderful. 

Love means wanting the other person to have everything he/she wants in life. Love means to share with the other person as well. You want to share your life with them, you don’t want to give up your life to be with them.  You want them to be part of your life. And when you find the right person to love, they will fit into your life – seamlessly and almost effortlessly.  Although it takes work to keep the love alive and “hot” as it is when it’s first starting, it is very easy to do this when you truly love the other person.  Part of loving someone is communicating with them also.  If you don’t communicate with them about your needs, your life, and your thoughts, then they can’t love the real you but merely the parts of you that you are showing them.