A Thousand Modes of Love

Why we deserve more than one word for our multiplicity of feelings

Love.

It’s the most common theme for pop songs and novellas.

We all want to be loved.

We’re told love makes the world go around (hint: it doesn’t; that’s actually the job of angular momentum).

We all agree that love is a Very Good Thing Indeed.

The problem is: we don’t know what we mean by love.

I love my children. I love hiking in the Swiss Alps. One word, two very different feelings. Because I really don’t think I’d love to hike over my children or want to take the Swiss Alps with me on a trip to Yellowstone National Park.

The classical Greeks made an attempt to be slightly clearer about what they meant, using ἀγάπη for friendly love and ἔρως for erotic love.

But frankly that doesn’t really help all that much.

I love my friend Bryan and I loved my mother. Neither constituted erotic love but the feelings I had for each person were quite different. And anyone who’s been around the sexual block a few times knows that there’s a great variety of erotic feelings of love as well.

Some people don’t think there’s a problem with having a one-size-fits-all approach to love, but imagine this…