Could you ever explain the feeling of love? Or ever felt how to describe what love is? Love is something that we cannot explain but we can just or simply feel. It’s that thumping of the heart, the beating of drum rolls in the ears or the twitching feeling in your stomach. But ever imagined how a psychologist would define love? They have various theories about it.

There are about four major theories that the minds of the psychologists dwell upon. Here is a vivid description of the theories that a psychologist give regarding love. The first one being the difference between love and liking. Zick Rubin claims that love is mainly composed of three human aspects, attachment, caring and of course intimacy. The attachment is the sense of deep rooted emotion that makes one person feel for the other one. Once attached you start caring for the other one, approving of certain things, which include the physical contact. Intimacy is the much deeper connection, that makes you share the most personal emotions and caring for the person you are in love with. Now there is a difference between liking a person and loving the same. If there is liking for a person, the intimacy is not part of the relation but if there exists love, the intimacy becomes a part of it.

Other theory regarding love is that of psychologist Elaine Hatfield and her colleagues, who claims that there are two types of love, compassionate and passionate love. Compassionate love is much more platonic, that deals with affection, mutual respect, attachment among the people in love. While passionate love on the other hand has much more to do than just having the sense of attachment. It is more bent on being a single soul, there are sexual attractions, anxiety, intense emotions involved in a passionate love.

The most interesting theory being that of John Lee, who in his book named The Colours of Love(1973), claims that like the primary colours in a colour palate, there are three primary ways of love and that being   (1) Eros, (2) Ludos and (3) Storge.

Like the colour wheel analogy, there are many ways that the primary colours works. Not only are they block parts of the colour but it also adds up with one another to form a different colour altogether. The three primary styles of love being:

1. Eros which is loving an ideal person,

2. Ludos, which means accepting love as a game and

3. Storge, which consists of love considered as friendship.

Now all these primary styles combine to form other styles that are more elaborate and are of different types. For example, Mania or obsessive love is created when eros and ludos is combined together.

Again, Pragma, which mean realistic or the way a practical life must be, is created, when Ludos and Storge are combined. And of course at the end, Agape or selfless love is created when you combine the Eros and storge styles of love together.