Do we express the same thing by “I am in love with you” or “I love you”? Maybe not!
We should first of all start by making the difference between the representations of love and its reality, and then distinguish what would be the four stages of it.
In any case, apparently, everything except a long, calm river.
Being in love: between reality and representations
Being in love in real life is not quite like in very romanticized films where everything is good that ends well.
Indeed, the romances in the cinema start all too often with a love at first sight which becomes the starting point of a beautiful love story and which thereafter flies, without great complexity, under the sign of happiness.
The cliché of the state of love, particularly in Gnangnan films, is very far from the reality of our lives which, in turn, do not resemble the least in the world of perfectly smooth love poems with sublime happy endings.
And fortunately! Because being in love and loving would be much more than that.
Is being in love the same thing as loving?
In this case, what would it mean to be in love in real life? What is love?
Is being in love and loving the same thing?
To love ( to love ), to be in love ( to be in love ), to fall in love ( to fall in love ), to have love at first sight ( to have a crush, love at first sight ).
These expressions in French, and which also have their equivalents in other languages such as English, refer to romantic metamorphoses and are, to a certain extent, identifiable.
And yes, saying I’m in love with you is not exactly like saying I love you.
First, we would fall in love, then we would fall in love, then we would be in love and finally, we would love.
The stages of love
The process would be more or less long and each step would have its characteristics.
In other words, having a crush is flashing on someone. Have a crush on a person.
That said, we could very well fall in love or have a crush on something!
It is therefore a primitive, spontaneous, almost uncontrollable feeling, which is felt in cases where there is a strong attraction towards the other.
It is an event all the same quite rare.
We feel desire for the other. It is sometimes inexplicable. Often physical.
It all starts with a s**xual attraction. So far, the blue-flower films have not been mistaken.
After love at first sight, we fall in love.
We would pass to the level that we could qualify as superior and to which love passion is built and cemented.
It is a generally very joyous and intense transition during which we get to know each other more deeply, we share a lot together, and this, to the point of forgetting our friends, even our own routines or even our centers of interest!
The boyfriend or girlfriend is at the center of everything.
Falling in love would be like snorkeling in a paradise sea where all the fish smile at us. Everything looks beautiful and easy.
Here, too, the fictionalized films are right across the board and we cannot contradict them.
The next state is when you’re in love.
We know each other already well enough, having spent a lot of time or quality time in his company.
The love passion is still alive but it decreases slightly, however.
Films that follow Hollywood or Bollywood standards, or even soap operas will stop by ease when in love.
It is the state of first happy stability of the couple.
And it is there that these films, series and soap operas can be criticized for conveying a highly standardized idea and unfortunately this gives a false image of love.
The danger also lies in the fact that this image risks becoming an injunction for the spectator and the spectator.
Because in reality, the adventure continues even after the idyllic state of love.
Then comes the stadium which is the real challenge for each soul mate. It is the challenge of loving.
After the euphoria of the emotions felt during the first three stages, the couple takes shape in a more consistent way.
Love settles in and begins its path to its co-construction.
But this is not without difficulties.
Loving would, therefore, be the challenge step for the couple.
Emotions and feelings have been preconstructed.
It would only remain to see if they are strong enough to withstand the storms of everyday life, routine, arguments, disagreements, declining s**xual attraction to each other, stress, everyone’s personal problems.
In short, loving seems to be a stagnation that does not make you want so much.
But therein lies the ambiguity and the paradox: while everything seems to be building naturally, the possibility of a collapse lurks like a gray and threatening cloud.
In love, to each his general conditions, to each his rules of the game
If the pink water cinema does not necessarily deal with the fourth stage of love, it is because it is a stage that it is not really possible to standardize by make-up representations.
We prefer to show only the facade.
The partners compose their own general conditions and their own rules of the game, in short, which largely determines the dynamics of their private life.
A sort of implicit or explicit contract, depending on the couple, is being put in place.
The difficulties then appear little by little since we leave step by step the illusions created by the passions and we enter with great strides in a space of reality less colorful, more banal and perhaps more disappointing.
The idealization of the partner is reduced like a skin of sorrow.
The limits of each one appear at that time.
Nothing is more like the first time, the first look, the first meeting, the first touch, the first furtive kisses.
Sometimes you want to find the internal passionate pulsation.
Some ways to feed the flame
There is still no question of falling into fatalism and giving up on the slightest difficulty on the horizon. On the contrary!
The challenges, big or small, between two people who love each other say a lot about the remedies useful for maintaining the relationship.
It is up to both partners to adjust to the limits and expectations of both, of themselves.
In addition, the love contract is not immutable.
It is quite the opposite. It is debatable, malleable, modifiable, improving, revisable, reinterpretable. At will!
Imagination must, therefore, become queen and creativity must reign alongside it.
Hope is the main driver of love, if not a perfect synonym.
There is no logistics of love that is unique and superior to others, or even effective for all.
The best logistics of love that can exist is the product and the fruit of authentic, conscientious, and conscious work by those who love each other.
A work on oneself and work on the relation, together, with the other.
Taking care of yourself, your partner and your relationship is the key to nourishing the sensitive flame of a romantic relationship.
Listen to yourself and listen to your partner. A “good night” by text when you are far from each other, and why not love texts?
Above all, there is no obligation to take literally the standards of love that can be propagated by the most fictionalized mainstream cinema and film productions that live on the naivety of average consumers.
These representations have nothing to do with the realities of it. Love has at least four stages.
It is therefore extremely moving and evolving.
It is love at first sight that rolls out the red carpet for a potential relationship.
It is a completely instinctive, almost uncontrollable reaction. This first step does not necessarily entail the following.
Love, at first sight, can be followed by falling in love. It is a passionate development.
This is the moment when we say “ I fell in love “.
I’m in love with you? No ! I love you!
If passion takes hold, we arrive at a state of love. There is stabilization and the couple takes shape.
Finally, if lovers allow themselves to be carried away by the continuity of passion, the fourth stage, love, will begin for them.
It is the most complex stage and the duration of which is unknown and depends solely on the will and the hope which animate the flame.
It does not follow any standard apart from the rules built by the partners and it is up to them and them alone to take the task of taking the greatest care and adjusting it while paying careful attention to the parameters that favor at best the well-being of each and everyone.
So do you prefer to say “ I am in love with you ” or “ I love you ”?
