The Ramblings of my Disorganised Mind

This was a defensive post and I know it. ;-)

Listening to: Tears for Fears. Help! 80s flashbacks! Booyeah.....

I googled "agape". Mostly because I'm pretty sure that sweet little "for fun" meme didn't get the definition right. ;-) Also because I also didn't really know wth "storge" is. (I still maintain it's a vegetable). And because I think someone - who shall remain nameless, but who, for once, isn't Scott - is making fun of me...

From this site.

How do I love thee? Let me count the six ways.

In 1976, researcher John Lee conducted extensive interviews with people to discover what the word "love" meant to them.

He learned, of course, that love means different things to different people. Lee concluded that humans think of love in six separate ways. He labeled these love forms with Greek nouns.

Eros Love: Eros refers to the romantic love that has tremendous passion, physical longing, deep intensity, and intimacy.

Ludas Love: Ludas is called game-playing love. It is like the love of a knight for a princess. There are playful interactions here but little intimacy or deep intensity.

Storge Love: Storge exemplifies friendship-based love. There is strong companionship and shared values here but little physical intimacy.

Pragma Love: Pragma, a combination of storge and ludus love, refers to practical or logical love in which someone actively searches for a partner with certain characteristics.

Mania Love: Mania is a combination of eros and ludus love. It is also known as the troubled love. This love has jealousy and dependence (often called co-dependency), great intensity, some intimacy, and many psychological symptoms related to the relationship.

Agape Love: Agape is also a blend of two other types of love, eros and storge. This is the love of altruism, of giving without asking anything in return, and of sacrificing oneself for one's partner. Many would consider it to be the purest form of love.

All couples share some of each of these forms of love. However, some individuals and thus, couples, focus more on certain types of love styles.

How do male loves and females love? Probably not the way you think of love styles and gender.

Researchers discovered that men tend to view love more in terms of the romantic, intense eros love, or the game-playing love of ludas. Women often have a more logical outlook in the practical pragma love.

Texas Tech psychology professors Clyde Hendrick, PhD, and Susan Hendrick, PhD make the study of love and sexuality their life’s work, They emphasize that a blend of love and sexual styles exist within each individual, and these love styles can change during a relationship. Their research also shows that lovers with similar love styles tend to stay together more often than those with differing love styles.

So, not chaste at all. :-P

Sex, passion and friendship, what could be better, huh???

(Gods. There's that mouth again. Where did that come from? Officially, I eschew love. See? This is my "chewing" face).

hehe.

I would argue, like the Texans, that we all have different tendencies to love depending on who we're with, and how we're feeling at the time. *shrugs* I could be wrong. Then there's what our style is, and what we wish it could be. Not always the same, I guess.

The Ancient Greeks themselves had 4 different definitions of love - the aforementioned "agape", "eros" and and "storge" are three, but one the modern-day pundits have left out is "Phileo" or "Philios" love -- that love which mankind needs to survive (see my previous posts on Lone Wolves and dead babies and other stuff of my "man is a herd animal" contention).

Greek versions of scripture expound all of these - philio is, I guess what we would call "brotherly" love and refers to the need of us all to be accepted and cared for in an affectionate, non-sexual way. It is the love of friendship - but, they reckon, the most selfish of the lot - the "I will like you if you will like me" sort of thing. Or, put more bluntly, the "So, what's in it for me?" love. That's the kind of love that in its negative expression, sees that someone isn't worth loving, you know, "Aha! This person is human! They are not perfect! Therefore I must not love them!" In its positive form, it doesn't expect anything but affection.

Mania is, I think, what Hollywood has us believe is "real" love. Oh, and I'm going to add Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet to that one, too. It's all got to be highly emotional, sparky and full of conflict [we hated each other to start with, and then... well, you know, proximity and scriptwriters, couldn't help ourselves] or, alternatively, joined at the hip, or it isn't "real". Historically, this is the sort of stuff written about or filmed most frequently... and of course it is.

Why? Because the "hook" in all sorts of writing is conflict. Any first year-crit group writer can tell you that: Open with conflict, or there is no story. There needs to be a reason that something can't happen, or there is no character change or what-have-you to make it happen.

And at this point I've changed the title of this post from "is" to "was" because I've managed to segue (HA!) into an actual writing topic.

And... uh... what was I saying? Uh, yeah. If you try and bring the Hollywood attitude into RL, then the problems start. People can't accept each other for who they are (I'm presuming there's no pressing reason why someone should change, you know, like they're a raving alcoholic or child abuser), get all dramatic and can't deal with each other. And hurt each other a lot (cf my marriage). and compare their could-have-been-content lives with frickin' Romeo and Juliet and conclude that they don not have a "deep love" as a result. "The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet". Clue there, folks: both of those protagonists, you know, DIED. Not really healthy, geddit? They could've actually sorted it out if they'd gotten out of the manic stage and thought twice about what they were doing. Lust alone (while certainly a part of every good & healthy relationship and nothing to be sneered at) doesn't = love.

But then, there would be no story, see?

Again, I bemoan the nature of the English language to suck at emotional themes.

Mind you, I think the whole "love at first sight"/reading minds thing does happen. Having said that, I think it truly happens to those elderly couples who have spent 50 years of friendship, romance, respect, intimacy and caring together and can still look at each other and love, at first sight.

Having said That, I think many so-called "chick flicks" hit the nail on the head. There's nothing whatsoever wrong with romance (even though I "officially" thumb my nose at it, I suspect that's because I've never had a lot of it hehe). But if you look at it more closely, these films show couples using alot of respect and admiration, and, essentially, treating another human being like they're special to them. There's nothing mystical in that. Magic, yes. But no mystery there. It's not even difficult, really. Give it very little time, and it's easy to adore. :-) Intimacy isn't too hard, either, and in chick flick world doesn't actually refer to sex. It's, you know, being able to trust another person with those details you don't ever want anyone else to know, ever. And knowing they will never, ever, ever use that horrible inside person we all have in there against you.

And I'm going to add, here, that all of the best "chick flicks", I believe, do the "I fell in love with my friend" thing, anyhow, and pretty much avoid the mania crapola all together. Examples include "You've Got Mail", "Strictly Ballroom", "Suddenly 30", "While You Were Sleeping", to name some of my favourites. Even the Cordelia storyline in Angel (which is SO much more interesting than the Buffy storyline) went that way.

Oh, oh, oh! I found Northern Exposure at JB!!! All three seasons! Woohoo!

posted by Heather @ 3:32 pm