When we talk about love, we talk about the physical or the spiritual aspects, or even about both. As the big thinkers they were, Greeks knew there are different types of love so they invented different words to describe each of it.
When we talk about physical attraction, we talk about Eros. This type of love is strictly related to our bodies. We are attracted by another’s body and all we’d want is to have sex with that person. That’s pretty much it. Whilst Eros is the love of the body, (Phileo mistake spotted and corrected by kallona) Philia is the love of the soul. This is the type of love we have for our friends. It’s the emotional connection between us. It’s the type of love that allows us to care one for another.
I thought that these two are enough, but Greeks said no. We have a third type of love called Agape. This is the unconditional love. It is that type of love that allows us to put someone else above us and to sacrifice everything for that person. It’s the love a parent carries for the child. And yes, there is more. We have a forth type of love called Storge. This is the love we carry for our families and for our community. It’s the empathy-based love.
Even though we know that all these different types of love exist, we use only one word to express them all, and that word is Love (you didn’t expect this, did you?). I see that there is some sort of a battle between these types of love and the one that wins is Agape. Since it’s the unconditioned love, we it’s the most powerful one. Nothing can break it, whilst the others can be broken.
All these types of love are required to a most complete loving experience, so none should be ignored. Even though Agape is the most wanted one, all of them combine to create love. Sure, there are people for which we feel only one of these four types and that’s normal since we have different types of relationships around us.
Based on these four types of love, do you know which one you feel for whom? How differently do we behave with people we love differently?