Chapter 6 focused on subjects related to love, intimacy, romance, commitment and relationships. The book took the time to describe, define and analyze these concepts through many different perspectives, including biological, sociological, and psychological perspectives. Friendship, differences between genders, cultural expression, social pressures, obstacles(both on a large and small scale, such as societal expectations or petty behaviors such as narcissism) and how love stands the test of time were other topics mentioned.
---
I did appreciate the acknowledgement of the variability of love and the variability of definitions for it. If love was so easy to define, after all, why would it be so hard to seek and why would there be so much misunderstanding? I also found the different types of love to be interesting. It covered a lot of ideas people express about relationships and made sense. I also took an interest in exchange theory, because many people(especially people who believe in unconditional love) will deny that this is what a relationship is about: the exchange of interests.
---
1. Do you think exchange theory is a reasonable explanation for love, or do you think it's only part of the picture? Do you think it's relevant to both romantic and long-term relationships?
2. How do you think platonic love relates to these different theories? Do you think one theory would be opposed to the idea of platonic love, or label it as friendship or something else?
3. Do you think certain types of love(agape, ludus, storge, eros, etc.) lend themselves toward more or less romantic love? What about long-term love?
~~~~Leishanda G.
I want to answer number 3. I feel like storge love leans toward romantic love. Now the rest are very questionable. Ludus is not romantic but highly sexual. Agape is less romantic because just because you are patient doesn't mean you are being romantic. This justifies that you love that person but I feel in an agape relationship both people suffer and there is no romance present. Some of them can go long term except for ludus. Eros can go either way because in an eros relationship you can easily get tired with the other person because eros want to always be around each other.
ReplyDeleteI identified with the idea of storge love pretty easily, and I thought it lent itself toward long term love.
ReplyDeleteThough now I'm wondering if identifying with one type of love over others lends itself to a bias against the other types. But I'm guessing that most people don't even experience just one type of love at a time, but a mixture of two or more. Or, it can change from one form of love to another over time.