True love is the feeling of affection, passion, intimacy and genuine commitment that one person feels for another.
True love is a concept spread by romantic and fantastic literature. Some of their representatives for example are:
- the English writer William Shakespeare (1582 – 1616) with Romeo and Juliet,
- Chilean poet Pablo Neruda (1904 – 1973) with his Twenty love poems and a desperate song,
- Colombian writer Gabriel García Márquez (1927 – 2014) with his Love in times of cholera,
- the Japanese writer Haruki Murakami (1949) with his trilogy 1Q84, among others.
The American psychologist Robert Sternberg (1949) associates 3 fundamental concepts to understand the types of love that exist that are transformed into the 3 steps to reach true love:
- Passion: it is the first step and it is about physical and sexual attraction for another person. It increases the secretion of pheromones and what is popularly called electricity or the chemistry of love or the magic of love is produced. It is also characterized by the obsession with the reciprocity of feelings.
- Privacy: it is the second step where attachment is created. There is closeness, proximity and connection. More intimate and deeper ties are created by sharing aspects of our life. Intimacy is built on trust, on security and mutual respect, otherwise it degenerates into distrust and paranoid suspicions.
- Commitment: the third step requires the ability to go beyond and, work to go beyond, misunderstandings and their anxieties in order to be together. This is the stage of maturity of the relationship where the key is to believe in the best of the other person without stigmas, prejudices or negative motivations. Here lies the famous belief that true love forgives because it respects differences, perseveres in the relationship through reconciliations because it knows that both want to solve the problems and overcome the initial pain.
From these 3 concepts derive different types of love according to the elements present in the formula of love:
- Like: the formula only contains the element of intimacy.
- Love / companionship: Together intimacy and commitment but lacks passion.
- Empty love: it is only sustained by commitment.
- Fatuous or simple love: it combines passion with commitment but in the absence of intimacy there is never a depth in feeling.
- Blind love: it is only full of passion without intimacy or commitment. Hence the saying love is blind.
- Romantic love: bring intimacy together with passion. Without commitment or without maturity. Here lies the platonic love.
- True love: Together to a certain extent, passion, intimacy and commitment.
