Love is often praised as a passionate, strong, overwhelming feeling of desire and lack. We are told of love at first sight, love at first sight, the birth of the feeling of love as something necessarily intense, as if it were obvious. Is it that every time, love? Falling in love, is it necessarily losing your mind, experiencing the confusion of the senses, being overwhelmed with emotions, experiencing strong feelings quickly? Must the beginnings of a romantic relationship necessarily be synonymous with all this? If it is not obvious, does that mean that we are not, that we will not fall in love? Should love be obvious from the start? Can we love without love passion? Is the beginning of a relationship possible without passion?
Can we love without passion? Is the beginning of a relationship possible without passion?
The range of sensations at the start of a relationship
To start a story with someone is to feel the urge. Curiosity, physical attraction, common points, there is something that pushes us to try the adventure. There are relationships that start out slowly and others that are much more passionate like those that originate from a thunderbolt. Are the seconds the ones that will last?
When you meet, the first look and the first exchange are often revealing of the result. We often talk about physical attraction, which we associate with love at first sight or even a crush. We often confuse this desire with feelings, we experience a certain vulnerability of the senses in front of the other, an uncontrollable connection which leaves us to think that it is perhaps him, perhaps her and we tend to attach very quickly when the mere sight of the other thrills us, making the heart pulsate and sparkle the look.
Conversely, you can get to know someone gently, over time, without having experienced this sensory euphoria at the first encounter.
Without obviously experiencing disgust or rejection towards the other, we do not know the instinctive and uncontrollable sensation of an obvious physical desire. If we had met this person by chance, we would certainly not have stopped on him because the first very instinctive reaction, that of attraction, would not have taken place. It is often the reverse process that occurs with this kind of meeting: the person is part of our entourage, near or far and it is by getting to know them, by discovering them, by appreciating them that we can wonder if there could have been or could be anything other than politeness, camaraderie, friendship. The famous “what if? ”
Tenderness and affection do they necessarily rhyme with lukewarmness in a relationship?
Some would say that if you don’t feel anything out of the box or if the relationship was born on a friendly basis, then you should look no further. That if there was no obvious attraction at the start, the desire will not come and that it will be impossible for the feeling of love to bloom. We then think of the ambiguity that sometimes exists, we ask ourselves the question of friendship between men and women. For some, it is an impossible thing, for others, it is common. How do you know if an emerging relationship can and should only remain friendly or if time can change the perception of things, can change feelings into emotions and then feelings?
Not having a raw, instinctive desire for the other, being lulled by a mixture of affection and tenderness, is this only synonymous with eternal friendship? Or can it on the contrary lead the relationship towards a future love story?
Tenderness and affection are part of the feeling of love, yet they do not seem sufficient to speak of love. We denounce their lukewarmness, their lack of passion. On the contrary, being good with someone, sharing moments of complicity, interests, and points in common, are the beginnings of an emerging love?
Love sets in overtime but it seems that for many falling in love is something that happens quickly, without hindsight or control. If the relationship is built on other foundations, perhaps less intense, but nevertheless sincere, isn’t love still possible?
Can you love without falling in love, without passion?
It is possible not to know the great impulses of the heart, not to have known the love at first sight so often quoted without being able to love. Falling in love is a state that is useless for the duration of a relationship if you do not love then day after day, if you remain in the stage of love at first sight, of desire. Of course, passion can last. Some couples have passionate, fusional stories, it is their mode of operation, their way of expressing their feelings. This demonstration of the feeling of love that seems more intense is not as solid as that of a couple who builds on a more discreet love, who took the time to settle down, who mixes the feeling of love on a daily basis on other grounds, which built its couple gently in a less ostentatious way perhaps but over time.
Attention, passion, and tenderness are not necessarily opposing concepts, on the contrary, they even complement each other very well.
A passionate couple shows tenderness just as a less fusional couple can experience moments of passion. Only these two models of couples are built differently. Originally, it was more or less opposite sensations, on the one hand as evidence, on the other as an adaptation to the other, which allowed the feeling of love to be born and love to develop.
In fact, the essential thing to remember above all, the only universal truth is that there are lots of forms of love and lots of ways to love.
In fact, the essential thing to remember above all, the only universal truth is that there are lots of forms of love and lots of ways to love.