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Love
What is love? How do you know you're in love? These are questions many have asked for as long as the word as existed. Some have defined love as in intense feeling you have for another person. Some also say it is great fondness of, or devotion to someone. The media has not helped matters with their unrealistic and often confusing portrayal of what love is. Neither has fairy and folktales such as Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty...we all know the story!

What we must realize is that though it is an essential part of everyone's life, love does not have a universal definition because it means different things to different people. Also, love does not happen overnight and requires time and effort to nurture and grow.

Types of Love
There are many different types of love. The type you feel for a person depends on the nature of your relationship with the person. For example, the love you feel towards a member of your family will be different from that you feel towards your boy/girl friend. Let's look at some types of love and their characteristics.

Self-Love: This is love for yourself, i.e. you love you! This type of love is very important because it has a great bearing on the way you will love others, or even if you'll be able to love others at all and be loved in return! To have self-love, you must know yourself, be your own person and like what you are. Be careful though not to confuse self-love with selfish love. Selfish love is when you have no consideration for others but yourself. This is a bad trait and drives people away from you.

Secure Love: This kind of love is mostly felt for your partners, siblings and other members of your family. This is because you are secure in the knowledge that they will always care for you, are loyal, dependable and reliable, and will never turn their back on you. This love can also be felt for a life partner. However, you should also realize that secure love can go sour if there is too much negative behaviour by one of the persons feeling this type of love.

Friendship Love: This love involves deep feelings of fondness, sharing and caring. It can be felt towards your friend, neighbour, or someone you're dating. Friendship love is the building-block for any lasting relationship, so it takes time to develop.

Romantic/Sexual Love: This type of love is what you feel towards your boy/girl friend, a partner, or someone you're in a relationship with. Have you noticed this is the type of love poets and songwriters write, and artistes sing about? In this type of love, you often overlook the person's faults and often are not object in your decisions. You may have heard people talk about "being a fool for love". This is romantic love! Romantic love most times involves sexual intercourse, but this does not always have to be so. You can have intimacy with someone without having intercourse with the person, e.g. through kissing, hugging, holding and caressing. It could also be through spending quiet times together by taking a walk along the beach or sharing your dreams and aspirations. A relationship built on sexual intercourse alone, without friendship and secure love, will not last very long.

Unconditional Love: This is the type of love many religions preach about, i.e. loving someone totally and completely, not minding the person's qualities, faults, or weaknesses. It is often referred to as "ideal" love. This type of love, though highly regarded and desirable, is difficult to attain. Some people even say it is unattainable. Whether this is true or not should not stop us from trying to achieve this type of love.

Love or Infatuation?
Can you tell the difference between love and infatuation? Many teens have a difficult time deciding what they're feeling or don't even know when they truly are in love with someone or when they are just infatuated with the person. Infatuation and love might appear the same, but they are two different feelings. The table below should help clarify the differences.

Infatuation	Love
Your primary interest is the person's physical appearance.	Your interest in the person goes beyond physical appearance, but also the person's personality and life.
The things that attract you are very few.	Many of the qualities of the person attract you.
Tends to start quickly. The concept of love at first sight is misleading. It is not possible to fall in love with someone that you have just met.	It starts slowly and takes time to develop.
Interest in the person comes and goes.	There is consistent interest in the person.
It can affect your mood and may prevent you from doing other things because you are constantly thinking about the person.	It has a constructive effect on your personality. It results in greater self-realization and brings out the best in you.
It ends quickly and abruptly.	If it ends, it happens slowly, just like it started.
It will fade and die with distance between you and the person....out of sight, out of mind!	Love survives separation and may even grow...absence makes the heart grow fonder!
You live in your own world and neglect everyone else around you. You are satisfied as long as you're with this one person.	You include this person and relationship to your other relationships.
Jealousy is frequent and severe, because your concern is you and not the other person.	Jealousy if it occurs, is less frequent and less severe. Love is trusting, respectful, patient and accepting.
Your overall attitude is one of taking from the relationship. The other person is seen as a means to gratify your needs.	You want to share with and give to this person.

Adapted from "Responsible Teenage Sexuality", Planned Parenthood Association of South Africa, 1998.