Designing Your Character & Other Handy Things 2

Types of love

Eros: A passionate physical and emotional love based on aesthetic enjoyment; stereotype of romantic love.

Eros is sexual or passionate love, and is the type most akin to our modern construct of romantic love. In Greek myth, it is a form of madness brought about by one of Cupid's arrows. The arrow breaches us and we "fall" in love, as did Paris with Helen, leading to the Trojan War and downfall of Troy. In modern times, eros has been amalgamated with the broader life force, something akin to Schopenhauer's will, a fundamentally blind process of striving for survival and reproduction. Eros has also been contrasted with Logos, or Reason, with Cupid depicted as a blindfolded child.

Ludus: A love that is played as a game of sport.

Ludus is playful or uncommitted love. It can involve activities such as teasing and dancing, or more overt , seducing, and conjugating. The focus is on fun, and sometimes on conquest, with no strings attached. Ludus relationships are casual, undemanding, and uncomplicated but, for all that, can be very long-lasting. Ludus works best when both parties are self-sufficient. Problems arise when one party mistakes ludus for eros, whereas ludus is in fact much more compatible with philia.

Storge: an affectionate love that slowly develops from friendship, based on similarity.

Storge ('store-gae'), or familial love, is a kind of philia pertaining to the love between and their children. It differs from most philia in that it tends, especially with younger children, to be unilateral or asymmetrical. More broadly, storge is the fondness born out of familiarity or dependency and, unlike eros or philia, does not hang on our personal qualities. People in the early stages of a often expect unconditional storge, but find only eros, and, if they are lucky, philia. Over time, eros often mutates into storge and, if we are lucky, there is philia and pragma (see below) as well.

Pragma: Love that is driven by the head, not the heart; undemonstrative.

Pragma is a kind of practical love founded on reason or duty and one's longer-term interests. Sexual attraction takes a back seat in favor of personal qualities and compatibilities, shared , and making it work. In the days of arranged marriages, pragma must have been very common. Although unfashionable, it remains widespread, most visibly in certain high-profile celebrity and political pairings. Many relationships that start off as eros or ludus end up as various combinations of storge and pragma. Pragma may seem opposed to ludus, but the two can co-exist, with the one providing a counterpoint to the other. In the best of cases, the partners in the pragma relationship agree to turn a blind eye or even, as in the case of Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre, a sympathetic eye.

Menia: Obsessive love; experience great emotional highs and lows; very possessive and jealous

Agape: Selfless altruistic love.

Agape is universal love, such as the love for strangers, , or God. Unlike storge, it does not depend on filiation or familiarity. Also called charity by Christian thinkers, agape can be said to encompass the modern concept of , defined as unselfish concern for the welfare of others. Recent studies link with a number of benefits. In the short term, altruism leaves us with a euphoric feeling—the so-called "helper's high." In the long term, it is associated with better mental and physical , as well as longevity. At a social level, altruism serves as a signal of cooperative intentions, and also of resource availability and so of or partnering potential. It also opens up a debt account, encouraging beneficiaries to reciprocate with gifts and favors that may be of much greater value to us than those with which we feel able to part. More generally, altruism, or agape, helps to build and maintain the psychological, social, and, indeed, environmental fabric that shields, sustains, and enriches us. Given the increasing and division in our society, and the state of our planet, we could all do with quite a bit more agape!

(Found on Tumblr)