“L is for the way you look at me.” Well “L” in this article is going to be all about Love. This is the first part of a four part series about L.O.V.E.
Love is both wonderful and tragic. It’s the thing that makes you want to get up in the morning and the thing that makes you cry yourself to sleep.
Everyone has felt love at some time: for someone special, your family, your friends or even when we love a food or a movie.
For myself, I find that I say love several times a day. I love my internship, I love my writing class, I love the homemade mac ‘n’ cheese my roommate makes, I love Bravo shows and I love things that are pink.
But how deep is our love daily?What constitutes love? How do we find love?How do we know when we’re in love? Is it a chemical or psychological basis?
According to Helen Fisher, an expert on love, love has three different stages: lust, attraction and attachment.
All three lead to the next and the first two are considered temporary. I like what Fisher proposes because it can be applied to so many things, even the simple every day things that we love.
Lust is temporary and at times misleading. When you initially see the handsome man casually standing across the bar, the one with the great smile, the button down shirt and hair you’d like to run your fingers through, that is lust.
Lust is also when you pine for that pair of Stuart Weitzman shoes waiting impatiently for you on a polished Nordstrom’s display.
Lust, my love-seeking friends, is not a destination but a pit stop.
The guy in the bar will be replaced with a guy at work and those perfect Stuart Weitzman shoes will be so three weeks ago and in their place will stand a shiny pair of Jimmy Choo’s.
Now attraction is a bit stronger. By this time after lusting over certain types of men, you learn that you’re attracted to the tall ones, the goofy ones, the bad boys, the older man, the brunettes, the one in uniform or the one with the great personality.
One may also find that they are attracted to flats if they are tall, stilettos to show off their legs, boots because they are so in with leggings or even a pair of wedges.
Attraction is somewhat more serious than lust.
One must not only have that initial lustful attraction, but a deeper attraction to know if they are the right fit.
Attraction can be considered more individual and directly correlates to your likes and dislikes.
From attractions comes attachment. We become attached to the new man at work or we become attached to Jimmy Choo, as both a designer and a shoe. This attachment can either be healthy or not and will be explored more in the next column with “O” and obsession. Attachment, however, is the end product or finale of one’s feelings.
Once we are hooked that is it, until we break that love and start the process all over again, unless of course you marry the man from the office or you never take off those Jimmy Choo’s.
I went through these stages. I liked a boy for quite awhile and would consider that my lustful stage as I hoped he would feel the same way and it was somewhat of a shallow lust as I didn’t really know him.
Then came the attraction, which to my surprise over the winter break of my freshman year, was mutual.I knew who he was and we seemed to be a good fit, we made each other laugh and we were best friends.
Then came the attachment, the relationship and most importantly the use of the “L” word. I didn’t really understand that word when I first said it freezing on a beach in March.
Only over time and with the attachment that continued to form did I understand what love was to me.
After a year and eight months though, we had to go our own ways.
We still talk/bicker now and then and I think there is still that mutual attraction, and as for attachment, well most of the time it’s considered complicated.
But for now I am content knowing that I am happy that I have found my own way and realized that sometimes people change and not for the better. I am prepared to start the insane cycle of love again, whenever that time may come.
For now I plan to keep loving my family, friends, the experiences I am so blessed to have had and of course, my red Michael Kors’ heels.
And like the song suggests “L, is for the way you look at me,” someone can be looking at you with lustful, attraction or attachment-seeking eyes. I hope you are ready for a little thing called love.
Heather Gromley can be reached at hgroms@gmail.com.