Love Vs Lust

What is love ?

One of the best things about “being in love” is that you feel really good about yourself. It’s not only that you perceive the other person as terrific; it’s that you feel terrific about who you are and what you’re about. 

Love can be divided into three entities: lust, romance and attachment, according to anthropologist Dr Helen Fisher, who has been studying the subject for 32 years. These three brain systems can operate in any order and in any combination. You can fall in love with someone before you sleep with them; you can become deeply attached to somebody and then fall in love with them; and you can have a sexual relationship, fall in love and then become deeply attached.

Romantic love is much more powerful than sex drive, says Dr Fisher, of Rutgers University, New Jersey. And she believes it to be a drive, rather than an emotion. "It doesn't have any facial expression, it's very difficult to control and it's one of the most powerful neural systems that has evolved," she says.

Love can be good for your health. If you are married, or happily cohabiting, in the long term you will suffer from less depression and live significantly longer than those who are single, divorced or widowed. But to get the full health benefits, you have to pick the correct partner, argues Dr Raj Persaud in Simply Irresistible, the Psychology of Seduction.

The lowest mortality rates were found in those who were named by their partner as a key source of emotional support and closeness, but who themselves actually named someone else as the one special person in their life.

For both husbands and wives, the worst mortality rate was found in partners neither of whom named the other as the special person on whom they relied for emotional support and closeness.

Love is action. Love is tolerance. Love is learning your partner's love language and then expressing love in a way that he can receive. Love is giving. Love is receiving. Love is plodding through the slow eddies of a relationship without jumping ship into another's churning rapids. Love is recognizing that it's not your partner's job to make you feel alive, fulfilled, or complete; that's your job. And it's only when you learn to become the source of your own aliveness and are living your life connected to the spark of genius that is everyone's birthright can you fully love another.

You don't have to encourage it, or welcome it, but you better learn to suck it up from time to time. We have mythologized love to such an extent that people are no longer prepared for the realities of long-term relationships. We are taught that it is good not to compromise, not to put up with anything we don't like, not to sacrifice our own beliefs for anyone or anything. Yet compromise and sacrifice are the cornerstones of marital love.

No matter what way you dress it up, the best thing you can bring to a marriage is not the feeling of 'being in love', but romance's poor relation: tolerance. Add to that enough maturity to be able to fulfil your own needs and you have some hope. Optimism and chemistry, which seem to be the bedrock of the modern marriage, just don't cut it, folks. And while I am pontificating, one more tip for the ladies: Try to find a man who has that most underrated of qualities: character. I did and so far my Oscar hasn't bothered him. Although I am still waiting for my cooked breakfast...

What is lust?

Lust is a craving for sexual gratification, which you can feel for a whole range of people. Those caught up in romantic love focus all their attention on the object of their affection. Not only do they crave them, but they are highly motivated to win them, they obsessively think about them and become extremely sexually possessive. Perhaps illogically, if things go wrong. they are attracted to them even more. During this state the brain is driven by dopamine, a neurotransmitter central to the reward system.

Often the first stage of love, and can lead to lasting friendships, romantic or otherwise. When not tempered with compassion and empathy, however, it can lead to emotionally damaging behavior.

There are different emotional and physiological components to both love and lust. Romantic attraction and feelings of love for someone elevates our dopamine and serotonin levels, which causes feelings of elation and loss of appetite. When we get to the point of feeling attachment and a more long-term phase of love, our bodies generate more oxytocin (known as the "hormone of love").

Lust, sex drive and an appetite for sex can visit during this process and is generated by increased testosterone levels in both men and women. Heightened levels of testosterone inspire a feeling of focused attention and sexual arousal.

We find that highly attractive couples tend to divorce more — probably because they have more opportunities to form new relationships. In general, we tend to couple with people who have a similar level of attractiveness. We also find that men tend to fall for pretty faces, while women are highly attracted to men with fat wallets. From an evolutionary standpoint, this makes sense because men are looking to improve their gene pool while women are looking for men who will help to support their children.

In the simplest terms, Lust is used to describe the intense feelings that one has in the earliest stages of a relationship. Some people mistake this for love as the feeling is so intense. It makes you want to spend every minute of every day talking to, texting or talking about the object of your affection. Lust is a strong emotion based on a desire to know another person carnally. If you lust after someone, you want to touch that person, make love with him or her, and generally know the man or woman in a tangible, physical sense.

From puberty on wards  young men and women experience feelings of lust which may also be accompanied by other, more tender emotions, such as love or protectiveness towards the object of their affections however, lust can (and often does) exist without such secondary emotions. One example of lust without emotional attachments would be the feelings of physical arousal triggered by pornography or "pin-up" models. Lust is found is both sexes, and it can be heterosexual or homosexual. In a world of billions of people, there are different flavors and styles of lust, and many variations on the norm.

Lust is believed to be a scientific phenomenon that leads to the reproduction and propagation of the human species. Our hormonal triggers,pheromones, and personality quirks make us all susceptible to feelings of lust for certain people. For example, women may be attracted to power; this is why an older man with no discernable handsomeness may be extremely attractive to young, beautiful women. However, lust isn't about money, it's a purely physical reaction that may be triggered by another person's strength, power, beauty, or charm. Men are visual creatures who will usually feel lust when they see a beautiful female body or face - they can experience a heady sense of "intoxication" around a stunning, fit female.