Platonic love is a type of affection between two people who do not have a sexual bond. Usually, platonic love is associated with teenagers who have not yet started sex or have given their first feeling to a movie or music star. However, platonic love also happens between adults - read what it is and learn about the types of platonic love.
Platonic lovetakes its name from the name of the famous philosopher - Plato. The Greek thinker distinguished three types of love:
- Eros- physical love. According to Plato, it is born … through smell, which would be in line with various modern theories about the operation of pheromones. Eros is a form of physical love that Plato considers as the basis for the development of mature love.
- Philos- friendship. It is this type of love that has been accepted as the counterpart of platonic love. An example of this type of relationship is the parent's affection for the child or the friendship that is not lusted after. This is the next stage in the pursuit of ideal love, that is …
- Agape- that is, love for God - selfless, full of devotion. It is also love for another human being, but always in relation to God - God is the center of this relationship.
Today it is assumed that platonic love is devoid of a sexual element, it has only a spiritual dimension. Interestingly, platonic love can be one-sided, because the object of feelings of a platonically in love may simply not be known about the fact that he has become the object of someone else's sighs. This is often the case, for example, in the case of the subordinate's feelings towards their superior or teenagers towards their idol. In platonic love, there is a lot of room for fantasies, images, ascribing to the object of his sighs features that this person does not necessarily have. Usually, a person in love assigns more positive qualities to the other person than they actually have.
It is common to associate platonic love with a sublime feeling, higher than that accompanied by sexual contact - but this is not always the case. Platonic love does not bring only beneficial effects in love.
Types of platonic love
As mentioned above, loveplatonic is a relationship devoid of sexual intercourse, but that's not all - it can be divided into four types.
Unrequited platonic love
Very often associated with idealizing the object of sighs - most often it concerns teenagers. Especially young girls tend to fall in love with their idols, which sometimes leads to cutting themselves off from their friends "in the real world", problems in learning caused by watching films with the "chosen one" in the lead role all day and all night, listening to music performed by him, watching interviews, etc. Most often it passes spontaneously and this is what it should be - worse, if it does not turn into mature love and the ability to establish partner relationships.
Unrequited love isn't just about teenagers and their inaccessible idols. Often an adult woman or adult man falls in love with a colleague from work, boss or friend, who, however, has a husband / wife. In such cases, a person in love may suffer quite a lot - everyday contact with the "forbidden" or unrequited hot feeling object of their sighs may lead to a drop in mood, dissatisfaction with all other aspects of life. Worse, it locks the person into a feeling that could make them happy - to another person who would love them back.
Long distance love
Platonic love can also be called a relationship of two people who, for example, met on vacation, but live in completely different places and continue their relationship via the Internet or any virtual relationships, when the "partners" do not know each other at all real, and yet they establish a strong emotional bond. Common conversations: exchange of views, everyday reports, exchange of advice make platonic love established. If this type of relationship is enough for partners, it will have a beneficial effect on them - it's always good to have someone by your side who will listen to us, even if they are not really physically there, and hundreds of kilometers away. However, not being able to enjoy this relationship when there is a strong need to do so can lead to frustration.
Platonic love in a steady relationship
Sometimes partners consciously give up sex in their relationship and live in the so-called white marriage. And it's not just about the beginning of an acquaintance, but about establishing it for the entire duration of it. However, if such a relationship is not one of two asexual people who simply do not need sex, it usually results from problems of one or two partners. The reason may be too much fear of getting closer, complexes, difficult memories of youth associated withe.g. with experience of childhood sexual harassment.
Love for a family member
Completely different from the above-described type of platonic love is love for a family member - sister, parent, grandmother or grandfather - or even a particularly strong friendship. They are the purest form of platonic love. After all, we do not feel any sexual desire towards family members, so this feeling is not only "sufficient" for us, but also strengthening, often full of altruism.
Does platonic love have a chance of survival?
In the case of family relationships: parent-child or between siblings - of course, but not in the embodiment of a teenager in love with an idol - this "feeling" will not survive, and it certainly should not. An Internet relationship between two people can last a long time, as long as this form of relationship does not become a burden for them and they start to focus on thinking that joint relationships "in real life" are not possible. It is not often happily that the platonic love for the "inaccessible" person we see every day ends, but for various reasons we cannot relate to him. Problems also happen in white married couples.
About the author
Anna SierantEditor in charge of the Psychology and Beauty sections, as well as the main page of Poradnikzdrowie.pl. As a journalist, she cooperated, among others. with "Wysokie Obcasy", the websites: dwutygodnik.com and entertheroom.com, the quarterly "G'RLS Room". She also co-founded the online magazine "PudOWY Róż". He runs a blog jakdzżyna.wordpress.com.
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