In every love there’s infatuation, in every infatuation there’s love.
When it comes to questions of the heart, we’re irrational beings. We let emotions take over our rational sides and we act like Cupid-struck teenagers every time we fall in love. However, there is a difference between love and infatuation. These differences and concepts have been tossed around often in popular culture and psychology. It’s important to know the differences because it allows you to differentiate a real, solid relationship between a lust-ridden one.
However, the feelings of love and infatuation have similarities as well.
- There Are Intense Feelings Involved
A common misconception is that infatuation is intense, while love is peaceful, comfortable, and kinda… boring. While it’s true that infatuation can be very intense, the same goes for love. Love can be even more intense than infatuation, but it’s expressed and experienced in a different way.
During the infatuation phase, the feelings can be so intense that they actually have physical manifestations like rapid heartbeat, shaking, trembling voice…
However, love can be just as strong. Loving another person can produce such intense feelings that the mere thought of losing them can be extremely painful. It can also cause us to act completely irrationally in order to help someone we love.
- They Can Both Happen Randomly
Infatuation can feel like a Cupid’s arrow just hit you: out of nowhere, you start seeing someone you never noticed before with heart-shaped eyes. A similar situation can happen with love: you can find yourself loving someone you would never think likely.
- They Cannot Be Forced or Faked
Infatuation can definitely not be faked because it’s intense, but there’s usually no motive to fake it. On the other hand, many people find themselves in circumstances where they need to fake love. It may be a long-term relationship that they’re afraid to break up out of fear. It can be a marriage where someone fakes love for children’s sake. There are many possible situations.
No matter the nobility of the cause, love simply cannot be faked and you can’t force yourself into loving someone you don’t. You can definitely make yourself be kind to someone and tolerate them, but love is simply a too strong feeling to be produced intentionally.
- They Cannot Be Suppressed
In the previous section, we’ve described some situations where people feel the need to force or fake love or infatuation. More often, there are situations where people would actually like to suppress their infatuation or love.
This is common for infatuation. We often get infatuated with someone we shouldn’t and then put in a lot of effort to “get over it“ or “get it out of our systems“. This simply doesn’t happen by will and you will have to wait for infatuation to disappear by itself.
When it comes to love, many people try to suppress it when they’re going through a breakup or when they get rejected. If you have ever been in this situation, you probably know that the more you suppress it, the more it seems to grow.
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