What is Love, Anyway?

What songs come to mind when you hear the word “love?” One of my personal favorites by Haddaway asks, “What is love? Baby don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me, no more. Oh, I don't know, what can I do? What else can I say, it's up to you. I know we're one, just me and you. I can't go on.”

You may think of “L-O-V-E” by Nat King Cole or “Love on the Brain” by Rihanna. Whether you relate with Nat’s sweet sentiment of, 

“Love is all that I can give to you
Love is more than just a game for two
Two in love can make it
Take my heart and please don't break it
Love was made for me and you”

Or you relate more closely with Rihanna’s messy and intoxicating experience of love,

“And, babe, I'm fist-fighting with fire
Just to get close to you
Can we burn something, babe?
And I'll run for miles just to get a taste
Must be love on the brain
That's got me feeling this way” 

It is clear that love has a hold on each of us and we have likely experienced multiple kinds of love in our lives. Songs like these capture both the simplicity and the complexity of love: its joy, its pain, and the ways it shapes our experiences. They and the countless other songs about love remind us that love can be both smooth and challenging. Music often allows us to externalize feelings that otherwise might be difficult to express. Through these songs, we can begin to reflect on what love truly means in our lives.

Love shapes our lives in a multitude of ways, and most of us have experienced its various forms. Have you ever reflected on how different love can feel depending on who it’s directed at? Whether it’s a friend, a parent, or even a pet? Ancient Greek tradition has left the outline of eight different forms of love. These eight displays and feelings of love are broken into the following categories: 

Eros: Sexual and passionate love.

Philia: Love between friends based on deep trust and mutual respect.

Storge: Love between family members.

Agape: Unconditional, selfless love for everyone and everything.

Ludus: Playful love that involves flirting and casual relationships

Pragma: Long-lasting love grounded in commitment, duty, and responsibility

Philautia: Self-love and self-compassion

Mania: Obsessive, jealous love.

Since the beginning of time, the concept of love has continued to evolve, appearing in gestures of affection, influenced by commercialism, and sometimes distorted in ways that stray from its original forms. People take advantage of the love given to them, call something love when the reality does not match, and fall into selfishness rather than true, unadulterated love. We know there are some pretty explicit ways in which love has been distorted. Hence, why it can be difficult for some to love others or even to love themselves. 

As a therapist, I work with individuals and couples who are actively trying to unlearn what they were taught love should look like. Some partners struggle to take the consistent, actionable steps that love requires, even when the desire to feel connected is there. Others come into therapy carrying traumatic or abusive experiences that shaped their earliest understanding of love, making it difficult to recognize healthy love and care when it appears. 

I also frequently see clients who desire love that is expressed through action and consistency, yet feel stuck or inflexible when asked to offer that same kind of love to others. Much of the work we do together involves gently challenging these patterns, grieving what was learned, and practicing how to both accept and give the kind of love they genuinely want.

In light of this genuine tragedy and struggle in our humanity to love others and ourselves well, we have the opportunity to restore the action of love and define what true love is. One of the most revealing ways we encounter both the beauty and the distortion of love is through music, which reflects the full emotional spectrum of our experiences. Nat Cole celebrates love’s team effort and strong bond, while Rihanna and Haddaway reveal love’s complexity and potential for hurt. These songs remind us that love is not just a feeling but an action, that considers desire, care, and understanding.

But what does it really mean to love someone? A good place to start may be Robert Sternberg’s Triangular Theory of Love. Sternberg’s theory says that every relationship is built on three key concepts that form three points of a “love triangle.”: 

• Passion includes sexual and physical attraction and the feeling of romance. 

• Intimacy is based on an emotional bond and a feeling of closeness and comfort.

• Commitment is the intentional decision to love another person and the work that’s required to maintain that relationship.

Each type of love is a different combination of these three qualities at varying degrees. For example, a stereotypical love of a friend would have low passion, high intimacy, and a moderate to high commitment. Each friend, family, and platonic relationship will look different but will still contain all these elements. 

Another big question is what love looks like with people who are not your friend, your family member, your partner, or even yourself. If we feel that we ought to love everyone, what does it look like to love a person experiencing homelessness, someone who believes and thinks completely opposite to us, a colleague, the grocery clerk, or a random passenger on the red line? 

In the therapy room, I often hear clients wrestle with this exact tension. Many people express a desire to be loving and compassionate toward others, yet find themselves feeling guarded, exhausted, or unsure of what loving action actually looks like outside of their closest relationships. In session, we frequently explore how extending basic dignity, patience, and understanding can be meaningful expressions of love, even when deep intimacy or connection is not present.

In the context of Sternberg’s theory, love for a stranger would have low passion, intimacy, and commitment. However, through the lens of Greek tradition, we can still extend agape: unconditional, selfless love for everyone and everything. This is quite the challenge and much easier said than done, but it challenges us to expand the very meaning of love and who is deserving of it. When working with individuals and couples, I often see how difficult it can be to offer this kind of love consistently. Some people long to receive patience, gentleness, and grace from others, yet struggle to extend those same qualities outward. Therapy becomes a space to notice these patterns and gently practice more flexible, reciprocal ways of loving that align with the values they hope to live by. 

Considering the songs from earlier, we can begin to see how they cling onto these ideas. Haddaway’s desperate question asks, “What is love?” and reflects the struggle many of us face when discerning relationships. Nat Cole’s sweet and wholesome love highlights the intimacy and commitment in Sternberg’s theory. Rihanna’s expression of risky and chaotic love emphasizes how high passion in a relationship can possibly enhance and complicate a connection. 

In my clinical work, these themes often surface in real time: couples trying to balance passion with stability, individuals questioning whether what they experienced was truly love, and many people learning that love must be demonstrated through consistent action rather than words alone. These various perspectives and portrayals of love let us know that love is complex and multifaceted. Just as music from today exemplifies the range of love we express, Sternberg’s theory and Ancient Greeks help us to understand its meaning and purpose. The hope in combining theoretical insight alongside our emotional experience, is to practice love more intentionally, extending it to those who we may never know personally.