The difference between love and infatuation.
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You start saying very predictable things when you’ve been in a relationship for a long time. Especially when you’re talking to people who are newly IN LOVE.
Note the caps lock. In this case, it doesn’t mean shouting. It means INTENSITY. The kind of INTENSITY you feel when you are newly IN LOVE.
This feeling is called infatuation and although it may feel intoxicating, it often leads to trouble because you don’t make good decisions in this state. Instead, you make spectacularly dumb ones.
Author Elizabeth Gilbert has written about this in her new book, Committed, the follow-up to the best-selling Eat, Pray, Love. The title refers to marriage rather than mental illness although in the infatuation chapter, the two sort of collide.
Reading it, I learned that the brain scans and mood swings of a cocaine addict are startlingly similar to those of an infatuated lover. Yes, infatuation is an addiction complete with chemical effects on the brain, measurable by scientists.
And just like a junkie, an infatuated person is blind to their future welfare. Physical and emotional risks? No problem. Whatever it takes. Love is the drug and they need some more.
According to Gilbert’s research, infatuation is most potent in a relationship’s first six months with anthropologists noting that many babies are conceived during this time (ooops etc). So possibly, infatuation is nature’s way of keeping us sexually reckless enough to ensure the survival of the species.
In the past year, a number of my male and female friends have begun new relationships. Bright, shiny, new relationships that make them EXTREMELY HAPPY.
This is a marvellous thing although it can be a little disconcerting to eat at restaurants with people who pash between courses and think they can put their hands up each other’s clothes without anyone noticing. I noticed.
Anyway, I’m genuinely happy for my friends and their hands and all their other happy parts. So why do I find myself trying not to frown as they giggle about not having spent a single night apart since they hooked up? Why do I silently ‘tsk tsk’ when they excitedly mention moving in together after two months? Or confess to being careless with contraception because ‘it just feels so right’?
The problem is that infatuation is often a crock. A mirage. “A trick of the endocrine system,” according to Gilbert who points out infatuation isn’t the same thing as love, “it’s more like love’s shady second cousin who’s always borrowing money and can’t hold down a job.”
That’s because in those early days, what you’re actually entranced with is the reflection of yourself in the eyes of someone who wants to sleep with you. It’s like two blank pages dazzling each other with potential. Only later do you notice all the fine print. Which is a major bummer if you are already pregnant or have matching tattoos.
The other problem with infatuation is speed. Generally, relationships that start fast also end fast. I’ve learned this the hard way and watched it happen to others predictably often. Some men have a particular tendency to hit the accelerator early, give themselves whiplash and then fling open the door so they can bolt from the moving vehicle. Neck braces all around.
Privately, when the new lover isn’t there, I can give my infatuated friends that worthy little speech about building foundations. “Take it slow,” I caution while they nod and smile insincerely. “If you stay at his house every night, you don’t leave any room to ramp things up when you know each other better. It’s still early days!”
Despite the nodding and the smiling, I’m aware that my sage counsel is about as welcome as a wisdom tooth extraction. Without drugs.
You know when you’re trying to talk some sense into someone and they pretend to listen but you can see they’re just wondering when you’ll shut up so they can run right home and have sex again? It’s like that.
There’s more.
Ah, holiday romance. Far from home, when everything is unfamiliar, Unsuitable Local Dude can easily be mistaken for Mr-He-Completes-Me.
Similarly, if you’re going through a rough patch due to illness, relationship problems, work stress or anything else that throws you off balance, you’re particularly vulnerable to infatuation.
Apparently, this is because when your emotional guard is down, you’re more likely to do the duckling thing and imprint on the first creature that crawls past your cracked egg.
I guess that explains why rebound relationships are usually so intense yet doomed and why most rehab programs recommend recovering addicts avoid new romance for a minimum of 12 months after getting sober. Infatuation.
It may also explain the odd dodgy relationship in your past. You know, the one you look back on and wonder ‘WTF was I thinking?’ Chances are you weren’t. You were just infatuated.
Looking back (or into the mirror) can you see the difference between love and infatuation? What have been your experiences?
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i see the difference, and I’m just realising how wrong it all was. A friend tried to warn me that we were going to fast, emotionally, not necessarily physically. I spent almost every night with him, and struggled to spend nights alone. I sort of did let my friendships fall to the wayside, as well as the rest of my life, such as my relationship with my parents and my studies. and suddenly my eyes were opened to how fast we had moved. and now we’re in that stage when we’re just waiting for the other to make their move because we know what’s coming next
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What I hate about my recent brush with infatuation is that it brought out the teenager in me. Not the part that we have nostalgic fantasies about as adults, but the obsessive angsty part that messes everything up. You know the routine: he is interested, but then you spoil it by being too needy and obsessive about communicating with him, so he withdraws and you feel like an idiot. I’m 40 this year. This one brief fling set me back 20 years in terms of my self-esteem and confidence. And it wasn’t even the guy’s fault. It was all me and my teenage angst!
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Ok, I admit right now I’m in the midst of that crazy infatuation stage, where you feel like saying ‘I love him’ after a month and you just can’t see straight. But I got to say thats half the fun… I could (but don’t) talk about how wonderful he is for hours to my girlfriends and the phone calls are those sweet lovely dovey ones that I used to think would make me vomit. I like the mix of chemicals in my body that are making me feel like I am alive and happy and extraordinary, but recognising this I still want to feel those things… because thats often the start of the next more satisfying love… I agree go slow, but don’t lock up your heart in fear of it falling apart, you’ll never live if your like that.
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had more or less the same thing with mr ”brasilian guy” lol….and after all don’t females of all species choose their partners for their genes? i too got a gorgeous son out of it, it’s enough for me not to regret it
and ps: same story with my now husband too…how strange is that…
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had more or less the same thing with mr ”brasilian guy” lol….and after all don’t females of all species choose their partners for their genes? i too got a gorgeous son out of it, it’s enough for me not to regret it
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it is enjoyable
it’s the best you can get actually! just remember not to marry him or get pregnant before it calms down a bit! 
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Ah, this is so timely for me. I have just started seeing someone and i am *infatuated*.
I cannot wait to see him every day. I am inthralled by him and i want to know more. When we are together we are always touching & kissing. I melt when he looks at me and tingle when he touches me. I love spending time with him – hours on end – even if we are doing nothing.
I admit it clouds my judgement and makes me act in a way or do things that i did not do when i was single (hello neglected friends), though i am TRYING to keep a sane head and maintain my life and routine as it was before.
But i do not think that all this is necessarily a bad thing (biased… uh huh). I want to enjoy the emotions i am feeling now, however wildly disparate they may be at times, because it is a wonderful experience. And something i have never had before.
With any luck we will see though the blur of infatuation and it will become love. Or maybe it will fizzle out. Either way, i am going to try to thoroughly enjoy what i have now.
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I’m not sure I’ve experienced “infatuation” as such – but I have been in love with the *idea* of being in love before. Which led me to make poor decisions in the past. Is that the same thing? I don’t know.
I probably acted infatuated with Hubby when I met him, but it continued well beyond the first 6mths. It was LUUURVE. I remember watching a friend greet her husband after work one day, and I had to smile – they were just like Hubby and I. All smiles and so happy to see each other, and I remember thinking back then that Hubby and I had been together for over 6 years at that stage – so to still have the warm and fuzzy feeling that long in to it was pretty good.
I wouldn’t say I do cartwheels when Hubby comes home after work each night, but my little old heart still skips a beat – especially when he has been away for a while. And we’re coming up to 17 years next week.
God, I’m feeling mushy today.
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As a teenager I was often infatuated with a guy, and then after he reciprocated the feeling and I had the opportunity to get to know him, my infatuation would cool quickly. We’re talking anywhere from a week to a few months. Lots of infatuations, then after a week, it was all over when I realised that pretty boy looks don’t count for much if he can’t make me laugh or laugh at himself.
My husband was different because my infatuation with him developed slowly over 6 months. I remember someone saying that they always knew if Brad was around because they could hear me laughing. I knew him really well before we started seeing each other because he lived next door. Definitely not love at first sight (although I do believe that happens to some people). We had been a couple for two weeks when we decided to get married at the tender age of 18 and 19. We knew that people would be shocked and that we were too young to be making that kind of commitment, although, privately we already felt married. So we waited. 6 years.
We got married in our early 20s, so last week we had our 15th wedding anniversary and this August will be out 21st year together. He’s still the smartest, funniest and sweetest man that I know.
All those crushes were important in the road to discovering what was important to me and what were my own personal deal breakers. I wanted someone who was fundamentally similar to me. The same values, beliefs, sense of humour. We’re a long way from being superficially similar but we “get” each other.
Infatuation is two people looking at each other, love is two people looking in the same direction. (Apologies to Ginger Rogers).
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Oh no definitely, but some people make a point of mentioning just holding hands or small kisses. I think it is just jealously. And also, some people are more affectionate than others.
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I didn’t mean to do that post anonymously, almost everyone who knows me knows that story. Its not a secret.
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I’m loving these stories, especially how many the infatuation lasted. Mine didn’t!
12 years ago I met “the frenchman” at a concert, it was very very romantic, intense and all those words used above. We didn’t sleep and spent two days together. The next day he left for a trip around Australia, this was in the days hardly any nternet, email, mobile phones (and yes that was only 12 years ago). So for 40 days all I got was 3 postcards. In that time, I had decided to quit my job and travel with him to NZ. He actually hadn’t asked me to, but he said yes. We had the best 3 months together travelling around NZ. Then the relationship soured a bit, but my “love” for him was still there, I could fix him. After 4 months I was pregnant and we moved together from Melbourne to FNQ. The whole relationship was only 6 months. He changed my personality so much, but that wasn’t due to the love/lust/infatuation, more to do with me being a needy person, and him being controlling and actually not very nice at all.
So after 6 months, I moved back to my parents house – no job and pregnant – they were wonderful.
I should have only had a one night stand with the french man. Would have been much healthier. But I got the most delightful and good looking son out of it (one of the main things going for the frenchman was he was GORGEOUS). I met my husband because of him, I was at home with a baby, so went online and met my hubby – one of the original online romances that has lasted 10 years now.
I never called my feeling infatuation, I called it lust. Oh and I had it bad.
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I agree there is a very strong difference between infatuation and love. Infatuation can be the start of something great, or, as it did in my case, can lead to a lot of pain and mistakes. The obsession that goes with it can be destructive and overwhelming. It’s possible to believe that you can’t live without the person, so will accept less than great treatment in order not to lose them, and mistake controlling behaviour and fights for ‘passion’, rather than what they are – crappy!
I moved across the world to be with my husband after a very short time – we’d been dating for two weeks – and we married within the year. This could be seen as infatuated behaviour, but the difference for me was the calm and logic that accompanied this decision. I was not panicky, I wasn’t worried or desperate, I just logically got everything in order to give us the best shot. I thought about him a lot, but I also had a lot of other interests and things on the go, and could fully focus on those and just be excited to see him when I did. The difference here is that I love him, very much, and I think he is incredibly attractive, but I’m definitely not obsessed with him, nor would I jump him in public. I feel very positive about our future, and see it with him by my side, but I know that if it didn’t work out, I wouldn’t die… I think that’s the difference between love and the addiction of infatuation…
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That’s so lovely!
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