Love vs Infatuation; how do you distinguish between the two.
Love vs. Infatuation: How do you distinguish between the two? Love and infatuation are two sides of the same coin; love and infatuation possess different qualities. The qualities of love are entirely different from those of infatuation. Love is like incense that is released into the atmosphere, capturing sedated hearts and giving them a feeling of belonging. Love deals with intentions; it entails deep and in-depth affection, feelings, emotions, and passion towards a person. Being in love is a beautiful feeling of oneness, trust, likeness, and emotional dependence. Love is attractive, delightful, and a source of happiness; love is inspiring.
When you are in love, you feel secure, safe, and happy with the person you love. Infatuation, on the other hand, is a state of being foolishly attracted to someone. When you are infatuated, you are immensely and strongly attracted to someone due to sexual attraction or desire. Infatuation is a state of madness; it’s a state of falling foolishly in love with someone. Infatuation involves unreasonable love, attachment, or enthusiasm. Infatuation lacks good judgment; it bases its love on personal interest.
Distinguishing between these two is somewhat difficult because most people feel they are interwoven. To some, infatuation is a feeling that leads to being in love, and to others, love brings obsession, and obsession grows into infatuation, but all these are just personal thoughts. Being in love with someone and being infatuated with someone is not related in any way. Here are some ways by which we can differentiate between them. 1. Love sacrifices while infatuation does not. Love is always ready to sacrifice due to the strong inclination towards the person, but infatuation can only sacrifice if it is beneficial, i.e., if it comes with personal satisfaction.
2. Love cherishes one another; love shows concern, care, affection, and benevolence, but infatuation is a sense of unreasonable love, so it has little or nothing to offer.
3. Love does not hate nor judge; infatuation is led by judgmental affairs and prejudices. Although infatuation is like a toxic love, it doesn’t hate, but it dislikes a person’s actions or behavior towards them.
4. Infatuation can be classified as being lost over someone and not necessarily a sincere type of love; it is like falling for something while love, on the other hand, is true, genuine, and sincere.
5. Infatuation is full of lies, deceit, madness, and cheating, while love is true, loyal, peaceful, and trustworthy.
6. Love is an intense feeling that doesn’t just grow in a day, but is a gradual process. Albeit love at first sight exists, it is not 100% love; rather, infatuation fades away as time goes on.
7. Love does not base its emotions on sexual activities but on happiness, fun, joy, care, etc. However, infatuation specifies its love towards the infatuated thing, whether it be sexual, lustful, romantic, or material.
8. Love is a peaceful feeling; it doesn’t need a reason to be, but infatuation does. You can be in love without having a specific reason for being in love with a person, but the infatuation process is different. It is always accompanied by a reason for being in love with such a person.
9. Love is less oblivious to another’s shortcomings, while infatuation focuses on another’s mistakes and shortcomings. Infatuation is based on the idealization of someone else.
10. Love is a choice; love is patient, calm, and persistent. Love is a beautiful thing, but it takes a heart of patience, tenderness, and commitment to enjoy the feeling.But infatuation, on the other hand, doesn’t entail all these; it only deals with physical attraction. 11. Love corrects and celebrates differences. Infatuation lingers on differences. 12. You fall in love with someone despite his or her flaws and imperfections, but infatuation seeks individuality and perfection. 13. Love is void of irrationality, but infatuation brings about irrational behavior like obsession.
14. Love seeks communal satisfaction, while infatuation seeks personal cravings and satisfaction.
15. Infatuation is based on assumptions; most of the time, the feeling is not a mutual one, but there is intimacy and mutuality in love.
16. Love is a very safe and healthy process, while infatuation is oftentimes unhealthy and seemingly dangerous, posing a deadly threat to the relationship.
17. In love, there’s always the presence of friendship and a relationship, but infatuation is the misinterpreted version of friendship and a relationship.
18. Love is a bond between two entities; it’s a cordial feeling towards something. When we say love, it is unattached to anything. You can’t always give a reason why you are in love; love is blind, and it is beyond a physical feeling. Infatuation is inclined toward something. Infatuation is ‘seeing is believing’; you fall for what you see alone.
19. Love is an abstract feeling that is sequential in nature, while infatuation is like having a crush on someone, and it’s not usually long-term. Although infatuation can lead to true and genuine love, depending on the initial motive of the person towards the other.
20. Another distinguishing fact between love and infatuation is that love does not hate, no matter the condition attached to it, especially if it is genuine love. However, infatuation can turn to hate when pushed to its peak.
21. Love does not hurt irrespective of the situation, but infatuation is not based on genuine feeling; it has the ability to hurt and sometimes can even lead to death. We have heard different stories in this respect.
I heard one recently: the guy fell in love with the lady at first sight when they were in university together. He was so infatuated and obsessed with her that he dropped out of school just to be able to monitor her moves all the time. At first, he started by missing classes and going to her department to watch her, and eventually, he left school entirely. He continued with this bizarre attitude until they got married. Unknown to the lady at the time, she thought he was in love with her. In her words, “My man is crazy about me.” They were married for just two years, and then everything changed. They both had an accident that left the girl with a lot of scars on her face, which affected her appearance badly, while the guy only had bruises. Back then, in school, he was obsessed with her beauty, and that was the cause of all his abnormalities. He tried to manage her for two months until he started cheating in front of her. The lady couldn’t bear it, so she killed him and committed suicide.
So, you see, most of the time, infatuation hurts and can lead to death. Infatuation deprives one of personal benefits; she couldn’t chase her dreams because she was threatened by her partner not to work so that she wouldn’t be wooed by men outside. But in love, there’s freedom; love allows for personal interest and choice. Love doesn’t deprive unless it is going to cause harm to the person. In this note, let’s not mix these two things together; let’s not contradict ourselves. Your experience with such a person, to some extent, is a pointer to tell you if the person genuinely loves you or is just engaging in mere infatuation.
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