Have you ever found yourself in an intense new relationship; People who get so nervous when they see the other person that their stomach fills with butterflies. People who question their outfit a hundred times before every meeting. You can’t stop thinking about them, so your week is spent thinking about them, texting them all the time, and only a few days later you’re drowning in your next date.
In these types of relationships, it’s easy to get blinded by the idea of love and affection with the other person and ignore what we really feel.
In most cases, this love is translated as lust: not love, but desire for someone: deep love for another person.
Passion and love are often discussed as different emotions, but the truth is that both emotions exist on a spectrum.
The Dana Foundation calls this spectrum the emotional system that complicates a person’s life. These emotions are lust (or libido), infatuation (or passionate love), and attachment (or companionate love). Each of the three emotional systems is linked to specific neurobiology in the brain, meaning that each of them is associated with different aspects of behavior.
While these three categories may overlap and overlap at many stages of any relationship, understanding the basic differences between lust and love can prevent heartache.