Determining whether you have feelings of love or simply liking someone can be challenging. Love and like exist on a spectrum of emotions, and the line between them is often blurred. However, there are some key differences and signs that can help you decipher between love and like.
Infatuation vs. Love
In the early stages of a new relationship, intense feelings of passion and longing can seem like love. This is known as infatuation or “puppy love.” Infatuation occurs when your brain is flooded with feel-good chemicals like dopamine and oxytocin. You become obsessed with the person, craving their attention and physical affection. This excitable phase often fades after about 12-18 months. Only sometimes does it transition into long-lasting, committed love.
In contrast, true love goes beyond butterflies and fiery passion. It’s a deeper connection that encompasses commitment, intimacy, trust, acceptance, and knowledge of the other person. Rather than being enamored by fantasy, you see your partner for all of their wonderful qualities and flaws. You want the best for them, even when the feverish excitement wears off. Lasting love can seem less flashy than infatuation at first. But it leads to a stronger, more stable relationship built on substance rather than just attraction.
You Can’t Stop Thinking About Them
In the early throes of infatuation, it’s normal to have constant thoughts about the person. You replay your last interaction over and over, eager for the next time you’ll see them again. However, if these obsessive thoughts continue months or years into a relationship, it could signify emotional dependency rather than healthy love.
With true love, you still think about the person often but are able to focus on other parts of your life. You support each other’s interests and respect each other’s space. While your lives are intertwined, you don’t lose your individual identities in the relationship.
You Idealize Them
When infatuated, it’s easy to put your partner on a pedestal and ignore any flaws. You may convinve yourself they are perfect. In lasting love, you see the whole person – wonderful qualities along with imperfections. Knowing someone’s weaknesses and shortcomings allows you to love them more deeply.
You don’t expect them to fulfill all your needs or to be your sole source of happiness. You love them for who they are as an individual, not just how they make you feel. You don’t get disenchanted when they inevitablely disappoint you or have a bad day.
You Have Butterflies in Your Stomach
That giddy rush you get when you see them call or text? The exhilaration when your hands touch? Butterflies are a hallmark sign of infatuation and new love. They show you’re excited about this person and eagerly anticipating your next interaction.
Butterflies usually fade as a relationship progresses into comfortable, committed love. However, that doesn’t mean the passion is gone. You find deeper sources of happiness in just spending casual time together, supporting each other through life’s ups and downs. The kind of love that lasts is not based solely on that initial adrenaline rush.
You Idealize Your Future Together
Fantasizing about a glorious future with someone can indicate infatuation. Your mind races ahead, picturing an idyllic life you’ll share. It’s fun to imagine a future together when dating someone new. But if you become overly attached to that fantasy before truly knowing someone, you may be projecting unrealistic expectations onto them.
In mature love, you are focused on enjoying the present with your partner, not some idealized version of your future. You know relationships take work and open communication. Rather than expecting your partner to fulfill all your dreams, you understand they are a flawed human just like anyone else.
You Want To Spend All Your Time Together
When infatuated, you can’t bear to be apart from each other. You may blow off friends, family, and other priorities just to be with that person. But this intensity isn’t sustainable long-term. In lasting love, you enjoy healthy space in your relationship. You support each other having outside interests, friends, and time to yourself. Your lives are intertwined but not enmeshed.
You Neglect Other Relationships
A new crush can be all-consuming, eclipsing other relationships in your life. When infatuated, you would rather spend time with that person than anyone else. If this neglect of family and friends continues far into a relationship, it’s unhealthy. True love adds to your life rather than isolating you from loved ones. Make sure to nurture all the important relationships in your world.
You Open Up To Each Other
Vulnerability breeds intimacy. When you’re able to open up about your hopes, fears, dreams, and deepest wounds, it forges a bond. This requires moving past the honeymoon phase where you put your best foot forward. Love involves letting your partner truly know you – past and present. And you earn their trust in return.
You Communicate Your Needs
Infatuation puts your partner on a pedestal. You may withhold your needs to please them. However, loving relationships require honest communication. You should feel safe speaking up when something bothers you or when you have different opinions. Talking through conflict and coming to compromises strengthens your bond. You support each other’s growth.
You Feel Secure and Connected
With infatuation, there are often undercurrents of anxiety about losing the person or not living up to their expectations. Love drives out fear and insecurity. You trust each other’s loyalty. Even when you’re apart, you feel a sense of connection. You can be fully yourself without judgement. There’s comfort in knowing your home is with them.
You Accept Their Flaws
When infatuated, you have an idealized image of the person in your head rather than seeing them clearly. In love, you recognize their human imperfections. Not only do you accept their flaws, but you understand how they became who they are. Learning each other’s histories forges empathy. You provide support as your partner strives for growth.
Small Things Make You Happy
Grand romantic gestures may fuel an infatuation. But with love, it’s the small joys that mean the most. Cooking dinner together, laughing over an inside joke, tending the garden side-by-side…these everyday intimacies provide lasting happiness. Love is built on a foundation of thousands of special, ordinary moments.
You Feel Like You Can Relax and Be Yourself
Infatuation comes with pressure to impress each other. True intimacy develops when you let your guards down. Being able to lounge around together in sweats, cry in front of each other, geek out over hobbies, and be totally spontaneous – that’s love. When you fully trust someone, you can stop trying to be perfect. You can just be you.
You’re Best Friends
The spark of infatuation is exciting, but it’s friendship that keeps love going in the long-haul. Having similar values, senses of humor, and interests breeds closeness. When you genuinely like each other as people and enjoy each other’s company above all else, you have built lasting love.
You Respect Each Other as Individuals
When infatuated, you may put your partner on a pedestal and neglect your own needs. However, mature love recognizes that you are two autonomous people choosing to be together. You support each other’s growth and freedom. The commitment comes from wanting to share your journeys, not clinging onto someone out of fear.
You Forgive Each Other’s Mistakes
No partner is perfect; everyone makes mistakes. During infatuation, one disappointment can severely shake your feelings. But when you love someone deeply, you’re committed even when they mess up. You have empathy for each other’s imperfections. Forgiveness comes easier knowing you’re both flawed.
You Compromise
Seeing eye-to-eye on everything is impossible. There will always be disagreements and differences between two people. How a couple navigates conflict shows if it’s infatuation or love. Infatuation leads to power struggles as you try to cling to the idealized fantasy. In mature love, you listen and calmly communicate to find middle ground.
You Feel Grateful for Them
During infatuation, you’re obsessed with the way this person makes you feel. In love, you feel grateful just to have them in your life whether or not they make you feel euphoric all the time. You appreciate little acts of everyday care and who they are. Your joy comes from seeing them thrive.
You Trust Each Other
With infatuation, there are often pangs of jealousy and suspicion. But lasting love leads to complete trust in each other’s loyalty. You know your partner has your back and will be there for you. They are your home base. Even when apart, you feel secure in the relationship.
You Can Be Silent Together
Some level of awkwardness is expected when you’re first getting to know each other. But in a loving relationship, you can comfortably share silence. You don’t always need to fill the space with noise and can just enjoy each other’s presence. Companionable silence is a sign of deep bonds.
You Have Fun Together
Laughter, adventure, inside jokes, shared interests, trying new activities together…when you just like being around each other no matter what you’re doing, that’s love. Your joy comes from the quality time and experiences you create as a couple. You retain your playfulness.
You’re Equal Partners
Infatuation can create an imbalance of power and dependence. When there’s mature love, you relate to each other as equals with respect and reciprocity. You support each other’s dreams and make sacrifices for the good of the relationship. It’s you two against any challenges, not competing.
You Share Values and Life Goals
Infatuation can happen even with someone you have little in common with. But for lasting bonds, sharing values, ethics and ambitions makes you compatible. Even with differences, you can respect each other’s worldviews. Having a united vision creates true intimacy.
The Spark Lasts
The dizzy euphoria of new love does fade in all relationships. But when you have real love, you find deeper sources of passion as you truly know each other. There are still sweet surprises, laughter, flirtation and intimacy. You fall in love with your partner over and over again.
Conclusion
True love develops gradually out of genuine intimacy, while infatuation is temporary excitement. However, one can lead to the other. The more you invest in truly knowing someone, accepting their imperfections, communicating openly and staying loyal through ups and downs, the more likely infatuation will bloom into stable, lasting love.