It is very difficult to measure or define love, and it is even difficult for people to really understand what the meaning of love is. With various types of love, we can distinguish unconditional love, from parental love, and from platonic love. However, when it gets to romantic love, emotions like infatuation, lust and obsession can at times be mistaken for love. Love is such a broad topic; here is how we can use psychology to understand romantic love.
Sexual orientation
Most studies regarding relationships and love suffer from heterosexism, the idea that all individuals and relationships are heterosexual. Most studies on romantic love do not address sexual orientation. Hence, the results always end up being questionable since there is no way to differentiate between subjects of the study that are homosexual, and ones that are heterosexual.
Various researchers however, take the outcome and put it like the survey was regarding heterosexual love, because many individuals identify themselves as being heterosexuals. The issue is that although the studies will not warp findings concerning heterosexual, homosexual relationships are totally dismissed. Fortunately, these researchers are taking more interest in studying the homosexual relationships, since there is so little information regarding it, and they do not know much as they would love to, in this age.
It is always important that we differentiate sex, sexual orientation, and gender because you would be surprised to realize that many people could not tell the differences.
Gender differences
There is a stereotype that women are very romantic when compared to men, although studies show the exact opposite. Men fall in love much more easily, they believe that there’s only one true love, and believe that love does last forever. However, women fall out of love easily than men, and they can even get married to someone they do not love. That is not to say that women cannot be more romantic. Women like to express feelings that are related to love, in addition to being verbal a lot and show affectionate emotions.
Additionally, women are choosier compared to men when it gets to selecting a partner, the major reason being that most women still largely depend on their partner economically. Due to this, when selecting a partner, romantic reasons might not be the one thing drawing women to a men, while men can pick a partner simply because they love them.
