Love vs Infatuation:
How to tell the difference between love and infatuation

Love vs infatuation! How do you tell the difference between love and infatuation?

It's easy for others to tell whether you are in love or just infatuated. But, it can be hard for you to tell the difference, when you're infatuated.

You can't tell the diference because when you're infatuated, you're "crazy in love," you've lost your senses. You've lost your mind. Infatuation is a delightful form of madness. It's like a short term mental illness, where you lose your ability to reason.

Here's how to tell the difference between love and infatuation.

Love is real, and if you take good care of it, it will last a lifetime. And love can grow.

Infatuation is unreal. The madness of infatuation creates many unrealities. You perceive your love object as vastly more wonderful than is real. You perceive your feeling of infatuation as though it will last forever.

Once infatuation peaks, it starts disappearing until it's gone. It always goes away.

After infatuation goes away, reality comes back to you. You see that your love object has faults, flaws, and the normal number of human quirks. You can't see that when you're infatuated.

After infatuation disappears and reality returns, any bonds you formed with your partner during your madness will stay with you forever. It's those bonds, the memories and the feelings that make up your bundle of love that might lead to marriage and a committed relationship.

So, love is real, and it lasts.

Infatuation is magical, mystical, very unreal, and it always goes away.

Love vs Infatuation: Is it Love or Infatuation?

It's hard to tell the difference between love and infatuation, because they are so intertwined. I'll do my best to unscramble them for you.

Love is a collection of memories of shared experiences of, about, and with your partner. The memories come with feelings attached, which come together in a giant bundle of feelings of love.

Infatuation is a hormonal state that turbo-charges those shared experiences.

Example: Agnes and Harold are enjoying mutual infatuation. They go to dinner. You and I might think that everything about the experience was ordinary, yet to them, everything about the experience creates a magical memory.

The food was the best they ever tasted. The music was incredibly good. In fact, one song became "Our Song." They danced. It was heavenly holding each other in their arms. They'll never forget what they whispered into each other's ears.

Okay, you got the idea. A shared positive experience creates memories with attached feelings. This is true of experiences Agnes and Harold shared before they came down with infatuation, and it will be true throughout their married life.

The hormonal, unreal state of infatuation, turbo-charges those shared positive memories, and allows them to create huge, fantastic, powerful memories, with wonderfully strong feelings attached.

Because of the infatuation, the bundle of love they will carry into their marriage will be much larger than it would have been if neither had come down with infatuation.

Love vs Infatuation isn't exactly the right question

But while under the influence of infatuation, normal every day experiences take on an intensity that creates very strong positive feelings that will last, even when the infatuation disappears.

It isn't love vs infatuation; they work together. Infatuation super-charges everyday experiences to create the strong memories and feelings that become real love.

The Dangers of Infatuation

If you think infatuation is love, you can do crazy things under it's influence. You might just be tempted to run off to a desert island with your new infatuee.

For many people, strong attraction can lead almost immediately into infatuation, and then all thinking and reality testing goes out the window.

All the things that were important in your life before, are no longer important. School, work, family, hobbies, plans and ambitions all seem so unimportant now that you're infatuated with your new attractive stranger.

Remember! Infatuation is madness. You can't think straight. Don't do anything you'll regret when infatuation leaves you and reason returns.

Wait until your feet are back on the ground, you've got your senses back and you can make reasoned, rational decisions. You've got time. If there is real love under all the hormones, your bundle will be there when your madness leaves.

If you have concerns about infatuation outside your present relationship, click on: Couple's Pledge (it will open in a new page).

If you want to read more about infatuation, read
"What is Love? Definition of Infatuation."
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