Love and infatuation

                              Way back in our teens, the picture of love was like a beautiful scenery depicting one of the best creations of God. Those promises of bringing even the stars and moon seemed all real. For us, love was like a bed of roses. But in this imperfect world, there is nothing like a perfect love.

                       Actually, it is infatuation which flourishes on perfection. Infatuation is a quick emotion wherein you idealise the other person as perfect in every way. You get attracted to the person based on his/her popularity or looks. You feel be jealousy, disloyalty, selfishness, lust! You always want to be around that person. It feels like being in love but it is not. The intensity of emotion is strong but not pure like love. Though it comes with the feeling of desire or feeling of being with someone yet it fades away. It is being in love with the love. In short, infatuation is a fantasy of being carried away by unreasoning passion.

                     But love takes time to show up. Love is when you realise that the other person is not perfect and you accept them with their flaws because they don’t matter. It is a feeling of intense affection for someone. It becomes deeper and more powerful over the time.  It may start with infatuation and then turn into love. But unlike infatuation, you trust that person, you are loyal to them, you are not selfish and no matter what, you will always try to stay together. It demands commitment and survives all arguments. It is strong and strengthens because it is real.

                  To advocate this, I would like to quote the words of Thomas Merton-

“  The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not to twist them to fit our own image. Otherwise, we love only the reflection of ourselves we find in them.”

                 It is said that love is blind. I strongly disagree! Love is all-seeing and accepting. It is infatuation which is blind. Love is the understanding and mature acceptance of imperfection. It is always associated with connection between two people that goes beyond the self. Infatuation may make the other person selfish if the opposite person’s reaction isn’t the same. Infatuation may be accompanied by lust. It is about thinking about oneself and not the other person.

                  You might have come across some people who keep on counting the cons of being in love rather than the pros. According to them, being in a relationship is like willingly stabbing yourself! Such lame opinions arise only because infatuation is mistaken as true love. You need to know the difference between love and infatuation. These are 2 different things in a relationship with different purposes.

                 So, do not get swayed away by the impromptu feeling of infatuation; let the time play its card and let love rejuvenate your self !