The Seven Love Types
This is the first of a nine-part series on the Seven Love Types: this introduction, then the Seven Love types, and a postlude of insights. To share love, it helps to understand love. I’ll begin with the thoughts of someone I have treated.
Twenty-six-year-old Allyson was seeing me to overcome depression and anxiety. I’ve made a mess of my life; too many drugs, too many guys, and never finishing that degree. I still get lost on shopping sites and social media. … My self-worth is tied to sex, fun and friends.
Then we talked about love.
Love? I’m not sure what love is. I love my dad, I know that. But he can be mean and he never likes a guy I’m with. I’m sure I love who I’m with now, Jake. I love my brothers and some of my old school friends but I don’t see them much. I hate the world, and myself. Sometimes I think I just love sex, drugs and shoes. I know that’s shallow, but it’s how I feel. I guess I just don’t get the love thing.
Have you ever felt you didn’t get the love thing?
With one word “love” Allyson articulated at least four different types of love, and there are more. To understand different love types, we need different words. In this post, I’ll introduce you to Seven Love Types. This, I believe provides you with the vocabulary you’ll need to find fulfilment in love, unless you look for type A love in the jungles of type B love.
The research shows that finding personal love is a major preoccupation for most all of us but so many of us get hurt in this area. So let’s take a step back and look at LOVE in all its types.
The Seven Love Types
These Seven Loves Types are based on words used by Ancient Greeks. They seemed to have thought a lot about life, death, gods, meaning, thinking, and different loves. They gave us Socrates, Plato and Aristotle; philosophy, science and democracy; and myths, legends and oracles to teach us about life, tribulation and the mind. They gave us the Olympic Games and articulated the golden mean, the golden rule and the rule of three.
“Love,” as we use the word, embraces a gamut of love types: sexual love, love for family, for friends, strangers, material things, experiences, and for reaching something noble outside of ourselves. The Ancient Greeks, however, used distinct words for distinct loves. This gave them more nuanced understanding.
There is no consensus as to how many words the Ancient Greeks used for our one all-embracing idea of “love.” Here, and in posts to come, I consider Seven:
Epithumia, liking-love,
Xenia, hospitality-love,
Storge, belonging-love,
Philia, friendship-love,
Eros, romantic-love,
Agape, giving-love, and
Mentorship, guiding-love.
Knowing these gives us a fuller understanding of love in our relationships. It helps us know, show and share the right love type at the right time in the right way.
Thinkers have explored other love types based on Ancient Greek, Latin or theological ideas. Most are sub-types of erotic or personal love (because we’re all interested in that): Mania, an obsessional erotic love; Pragma, a practical, convenient, thought-out personal love; Ludus, a playful and even promiscuous erotic love (based on ideas by the Roman poet, Ovid); and Conjugal love, a sacred personal love. Others are forms of self-love: Philautia, self-love which Aristotle saw as healthy if used for virtue, but unethical if used for personal gain; and Hubris, an extreme self-love which can lead to the abuse of others (not good).
Love is not just about sex and excitement (erotic love, of course, includes those). It’s also about friendship, guiding, and giving, and a lot about the feeling of belonging and sharing. The Seven Love Types help us understand loving love-partners, family, friends, colleagues and even strangers. Understanding them leads to better life and better relationships.
In the next post, I’ll start with Epithumia, liking-love and a few related ideas on sex which seems to muddle up our reasoning a little when it comes to love. Epithumia is an Ancient Greek word which means “having affection for” and “feeling desirous towards.” Through it, we’ll learn a few things about the power of all love types. Then we’ll go through love for strangers, for friends, for family and, of course, the love between lovers.
We’ll use our mind’s understanding to guide our heart’s desires and the two together should make for a good team.
Love to you.