Interpersonal Behavior: Types of Love

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Interpersonal Behavior
Types of Love
Love is one of the many emotions we feel. However, love is not like the other old boring emotions that we experience in our lifetimes. It is a driving and guiding force. It can make us ecstatic or miserable. However, whenever we hear about love, the type of love that comes to mind is Eros Love. Eros love is the romantic love we feel for those we are intimate with. Aside from Eros love, there are many other types of love that we experience in our lifetimes. Other forms of love include familial love, love for animals, friendship, love, and romantic love.
This essay discusses three types of love, familial love, friendship, and romantic love assessing their differences and similarities based on some key aspects of love, and analyzing the role of empathy and the concept of authenticity in these forms of love.
The type of relationship majorly determines the levels of intimacy in the form of love. Intimacy itself can be sexual or affectionate or in some cases just the freedom to confide in one another. Romantic relationships encompass all these aspects of intimacy (Zhang and Wang 657). On the other hand, friends and family relationships do not involve sexual contact; however, they do involve a great deal of affection and trust. Regardless of the type of relationship, intimacy works when those involved treat each other as equals and respect is observed in communication (De Dreu, Carsten and Mariska 167)).
About commitment, the levels vary depending on the nature of the love relationship. For example, a couple may vow to maintain an exclusive sexual relationship, a person who is dating may prioritize loyalty to their families and old friends over any romantic relationship, while others may value commitment to family and spouses over commitment to friends. The highest levels of commitment, however, are generated by familial and romantic relationships (Starker 15). Parents often use love as a powerful tool to generate obedience especially when they withdraw love from their children (Aronson 333). Authors such as Richard Rapson and Elaine Hatfield have drawn a clear distinction between passionate and companionate as to broad types of love. Passionate love involves strong emotions, intense preoccupation, and sexual desire, while companionate love is a milder and more stable experience that characterized by some feelings of dependability, mutual trust, and warmth (Aronson 390)
In all forms of love discussed in this essay, there is some level of care and devotion. The brisk of rejection, betrayal or mistreatment is also always there. The other type of overlap common to romantic, family and friendship, love relationships is that they can change at certain points in time. A friend relationship can turn into a romantic one while those in romantic relationships can revert to being friends. Additionally, a romantic relationship features friendship as one of its key components, and romantic relationships can turn into family relations through marriage.
Role of Empathy in Love Relationships
Empathy plays a key role in all forms of love relationships. Empathic abilities in human beings are considered a part of our emotional int...