The many stages of L O V E


I'd like to start this entry off by saying Congratulations to a couple of friends of mine who have decided to elope! I won't mention names, because it's their place to tell, but all my best to the happy inspiring in love couple!

This entry was inspired by Amy's recent blog about the true meaning of this thing called love. I found it to be very thought provoking, and if I knew how to post links on this thing, I would give you her site. LOL I think most of you know it anyway. Her thoughts got me to thinkin' about all the different kinds of love. I've been "in love" on many different levels in my lifetime so far. It's an exciting thing to think of the levels I have yet to experiance.

Level one is of course souly based on physical attraction. I like to call it Lustful Love. It's the kind of feeling you develop for the guy at Starbucks who serves you coffee just the way you like it everyday. Sometimes he even gives you extra foam, which you are sure is a sign that he is equally as attracted to you as you are to him. If you haven't heard "Taylor the latte' boy," by Kristen Chenoweth, you need to. It is a perfect example of lustful love. One can experiance this kind of love multiple times in life. Shoot...multiple times per day!

Level two is Puppy Love. This is an honest attraction and affection for someone. It's in it's earliest stages, and if nurtured could turn into something more serious. However most people get bored with this level after a week or two and never really put the time and effort into seeing this kind of relationship mature. I would have to say I've probably experianced Puppy Love at least 3 or 4 times a year since I was like 10. I never went through that awkward "boys have cooties" stage. Ask all my childhood friends and they will tell you. I ALWAYS had a boyfriend or two or three. Of course most of my so called "boyfriends" were married men or cousins of mine. I didn't quite understand that it was wierd for me to want to date my cousins. Yes...I understand that NOW!!

Level three is Infatuated Love. This is not to be confused with Obsessive Love which I won't cover in this post, but is the catagory that stalkers fall into. Infatuated love is a dangerous stage that can easily become obsessive love if the affection is not returned. Mostly this is the stage that everyone hates to see. It's usually the stage right before Serious Love which we may tackle in another blog. It could actually be classified as a sub stage of Infatuated love. I won't go into all that now.

Back to Infatuated love. This is where all the silliness comes in. Ya know..you've all seen it. They don't even know that there's anyone else in the room. You have to yell their names at least 5 times before getting even the smallest sign of recognition. It's almost like they're in some sort of coma. Each of them thinks the other one is perfect in every way and no one could tell them different. In fact, don't even approach the subject of their love's imperfections! That is, if you would like to keep your head attached to the rest of your body. I've experianced this kind of love probably only once in my life. It didn't last
long, and never went on to the next stage. Everybody say Awww! That's right, feel sorry for me!

The last stage that I will talk about today is Forever Love. This is pretty self explanatory. This is not necessarily the kind of love that married couples have. I think some married couples only make it to serious love and never know forever kind of love. Not to diminish serious love in any way. Forever love is when, if you're spouse died at a young age and left you to live most of your life without them ,you would chose to live alone rather than ever love another. Now, I'm not saying that people shouldn't re-marry after something like that. I'm all for it. But, I have known a few people that gave their heart away to one person, and once that person was gone whether it be through death or divorce, they simpy did not have another heart to give away. I think Forever love is something that likely develops over a long period of time. I don't think Forever love is necessary to have a happy marriage, but I think I'd like to experiance the depth of it someday. That's all for now. More later.