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Are you really in love or is it just an infatuation?
By The Mind's Journal — Written on Jan 10, 2022
Love is supposed to be crazy, irrational, and sans logic.
That’s what we believe. And why not?
Every time we see the object of our affection, we go mad with feelings. We want to keep beholding them until we are satisfied. And we never seem to be satisfied.
We are never bored with our beloved.
When we are around him/her, we are so full of crazy love that we feel dizzy in the head, get that fluttering feeling in the stomach, and the ground below our feet seems to vanish all at once.
Love is powerful.
At least once in our life, we want to experience boundless love. Once we meet someone with who we slightly fathom a mental connection, we jump to the conclusion that we are in love.
Sadly, there’s a high chance that we are not — what we are actually feeling is infatuation.
Infatuation is an intense, overwhelming, and all-consuming feeling.
One crucial distinction between love and infatuation is that when a person is infatuated with someone, the focus will merely be on what the other person makes you feel and you don’t even care about the reciprocation of feelings.
However, some people easily confuse infatuation with love.
Infatuation is an extravagant admiration for your beloved, which typically lasts for a short span of time. While love blooms to the fullest over time, the fire of infatuation will quickly die down. It is only after the fire has been doused that you come to realize that it was yet another fling and not real love.
How do you know if you are infatuated or if you are really in love? Are you confusing love with infatuation?
Some of these signs of infatuation are closely similar to love. Let’s help you differentiate them.
Here are 6 signs of infatuation that you are confusing with love.
1. Intense, all-consuming feelings
What infatuation looks like:
When you are infatuated with someone, you will be overcome with profoundly crippling emotions associated with your object of affection. These emotions will often come in waves and hit you right at the pit of your stomach, sometimes making you feel sick with feelings.
What love looks like:
When you love someone, your feelings for them slowly unfold. They never make you feel insane, crazy, or off the grid. Love makes you feel calm, composed and settled. It soothes you.
2. Over-possessiveness
What infatuation looks like:
When you are infatuated with someone, you want to own him/her. Every person who gets close to your love object instigates jealousy in you.
You wish to be in their mind 24/7 and want all of their undivided attention. You are overcome with extreme jealousy, even if someone else looks at them.
What love looks like: Love is wild. When you love someone, you are not scared to lose them as you do not even wish to possess them. You give them the space to bloom to their fullest, at their own pace. You set them free.
3. Fear and anxiety
What infatuation looks like:
Infatuation will break you down with the fear and anxiety of losing that person. You will worry and overthink every trivial action and word on his/her part. Your life will center around the object of your affection as you find yourself preoccupied with recurrent thoughts of him/her.
What love looks like:
Love does not fear the loss of your beloved. Yes. You read it right. Whether you are ready to believe this or not, if you love someone, you will never be scared of losing him/her.
You know this person is ingrained in each and every one of your molecules and no physical loss can separate you both. No matter who they are with, what they are thinking of, or what they are doing, you will love them anyway.
4. An embodiment of perfection
What infatuation looks like:
When you are infatuated with someone, you will believe that your object of affection is a personification of perfection. He/she is the image of an ideal partner, your dream lover.
Their smile, their eyes, nose, lips, personality, and everything else is your muse. Everything about them is perfect, flawless, and supreme.
What love looks like:
When you love someone, you feel like the other person is nothing near perfect, nevertheless, you admire everything about them. You accept them the way they are. You love their flaws and scars. No matter what they are, they are the ruler of your heart.
5. Feelings going haywire
What infatuation looks like:
Infatuation makes your feelings go haywire. Often, when these intense feelings are not reciprocated, the person might become self-critical, self-destructing, and wallow in self-pity. If your beloved ever shows you a distant sign of rejection, it kills your self-esteem.
What love looks like:
When you are in love, you feel like an extension of the other person and hence, you care not to destroy yourself when you are hurt by the other person. You have a deep sense of connection and understanding, which pervades silly behaviors, like performing antics to get the other person’s attention or destructing oneself.
6. Insecure attachment
What infatuation looks like:
When you are infatuated with someone, you are bound to be insecurely attached to that person. Insecure attachment comes from the very fear of abandonment. You are always scared of your beloved having the power to devastate you by leaving you.
What love looks like:
When you love someone, your biggest strength is your beloved. No matter what he/she does and whether they are present with you or not, you care for them, wish them good, and pray for their well-being.
Love is hard to find, but once you do, you will feel secure and at peace with the person you love. You won’t have to constantly worry about them cheating at your back or that they'll drive you "insane."
Love isn’t madness. It is not self-destructive. Never.
If you are still under the conception that love is true only when it’s killing you, draining the blood off you, you are to immediately isolate the idea. When you are in love with someone, they become your inspiration and your reason to grow and develop spiritually.
Love does not kill. Love builds. Love takes time to grow. Infatuation will eventually grow out someday.
One needs some time to let the seed of love sprout.
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Shreyasi Debnath is a writer who focuses on relationships, dating, and love. For more of her relationship content, visit her author profile on The Mind's Journal.
This article was originally published at The Mind's Journal. Reprinted with permission from the author.