Two "kinds" of love

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I haven't ever found an NT who has the same observation/view as I have, but in my mind there are two quite different types of love or romance. One is the type I am (mainly) looking for at this time, and the other is one that I know exists, but don't really understand.

The first one is more playful and inspiration-driven. It's kind of like the friendships that other kids had when they were growing up, that I never got to have. It consists of playing together, looking for beauty in nature (or in the city, if that is your thing) together, philosophizing together, etc. Essentially, you are trying to discover/explore the "magic" of the universe together.

The other type of romance, which is actually the kind that most people seem to mean when they describe someone as "romantic". That refers to building a relationship that supports all aspects of both your lives, where both take care of the other and fulfill each other's need for a home rather than just an adventure. In some sense, each of you replaces the family that the other grew up with.

I suppose it may be possible to have both of these with one person, but I don't see that happening that often. It's possibly because I was a loner as a kid, and never had the chance to share my imagination with another kid, or go catching frogs in the stream, or whatever, that makes me very strongly crave this kind of romance. Whereas, still feeling in many ways like a kid myself, I don't feel as though I want a family of my own anytime soon, and I could never imagine being someone's support system (in the sense of replacing family), nor am I socially developed enough to choose a romantic partner who would be mine.

Has anyone else noticed this strong "split" between what you, and typical adults, see or want romance or love to be??

I'm not an adult, but I also agree that there are two kinds of love.

The first kind is very spontaneous and natural, you actually 'fall-in-love' as you go. You both do things together and it happens as you go.

If you are a tourist who travels the world, you might run into a fellow world-traveler, and together you might explore the world and at the same time fall in love.

Whatever. Most of them occur if you are the type to travel frequently but not always.

Even if you stay in one city it can still happen.

A VERY good example of this kind of love is the movie, Before Sunset. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Before_Sunset

It is one of the only love/romance movies I know where this is the kind of love that happens.

A man and woman meet each other and spend the day together walking around the city talking. They fall in love and plan to meet up in the future but don't. Over a decade later they end up running into each other again in Paris, and do the same thing before one of them has to leave on their plane flight.

The second one seems to have more 'social rules'. You often have to do everything the conformist way to get a proper date and a relationship. All the mindless social games and social rules...

I would also prefer the first one to the second one. It just feels so much more right. More natural. The second one means dating a couple times and slowly building a connection and falling in love.

The first one is the actual process of falling in love.

I hadn't thought of it like that before. Sounds like two different kinds of relationship rather than two kinds of love. I'd say you could have the same feelings of love towards another person in both scenarios, it is just a difference in how you want to spend your time together and what you want from each other. I'd say I'm more after the first kind, as I'm very independent even when in a relationship. I don't like to see myself and my partner as two people making up a complete unit, but as two people being two people together.

You described it better. The second one is sharing a life and living as one, living together and doing all the same things together.

It is mixing your music CDs together, mixing your stuff together, living together, etc.

The first one is two independent, individual and seperate people who still mutually show each other interest and return interest.

You can have this in the second one but it's definitely not as well-defined.

Maybe it can be compared to this question:

Which do you want: A partner, or a relationship?

Just thinking about that in this context and the two things have completly different meanings to me...

I think I'm living more like the first one, even if I've been married for more than 20 years. I've never understood the "two-becomes-one" concept.

It seems more like relationship dynamics rather than types of love.
Some people want playmates, some want soulmates, some want mindmates, some want teammates.
It's more tied to how the two people in question work together.

I see a different split: lust and admiration. Lust is when you are attracted to someone just for sex, nothing else. You see the person as a sexual playmate but don't really respect the person or "fall in love" with the person. Admiration is when you like who a person is and the sexual attraction comes from how much you like the person's personality.

And there's the occasional total package who does it for you in all ways from the start

Yes I'd say the first type is playmates and mindmates, and the second is soulmates (though the first has some of that too) but especially the teammates aspect. Though I would argue that there is a different kind of love involved. The second, while some would say it's the most romantic, I see it as the most like family love that non-relatives have.

The first one makes you feel more alive, the second one makes you feel cared for. At least that's how it would feel to *receive* the second one--I have no idea what it feels like on the giving "end" of that. I guess that's why it's so hard for me to imagine being a parent.

The first one does have a playfulness to it.

Maybe even that you both don't express 'romantic love' at all, but know that your love for each other is there. It's less explicit.

The second one is saying 'I love you, you love me, let's be a family'.

The first one the relationship isn't explicitly defined but it's all implied. "Hey, you're a cool, interesting person and it's been good fun exploring the waterfalls of Africa with you, flirting with you, teasing you, caring for you, supporting you. Am I in love? I don't know. Is this a 'thing' we have together? Again I don't know and I don't care, let us just continue living in the moment together and see where things go."

Like I said OP, I recommend watching the movie Before Sunset. 100% accurate...

It's all good, adventurous fun, but eventually there does come a time where the first needs to transition into the second, or at least the relationship needs to be defined.

And the first one IS more natural, more organic. It doesn't use artificial labels to get its point across that these are two people who have a thing for one another.

I'd rather say the first one has a more implicit aspect of caring for each others while in the second it is more explicit and verbal, even kind of expected. I don't think that means people in the first one are less caring.

Yes, and games.



Agree.



Never understood why you are expected to say this all the time. Makes no sense to me as you should show this and not say it.



I can really identify with that. Great description.



Yes, these things tend to go on for ever without ever being defined as relationships.



I suspect that for many NTs the second one is more natural.

Not really.

For me, sexual attraction always goes with lust, and even if I find somebody interesting for further contact, this will make the sexual attraction vanish.

That's a shame! I can be sexually, intellectually, personalityly (yep I made up a ridiculous word) attracted to someone all at the same time. It's not particularly common, but pretty cool when it happens.

I think there is something to your distinction between the two kinds of adult relationships and also to that the first kind is more Aspie and that it is a lot about catching up on what Aspergers didnt do as kids. I would say though that my sense of adventure and also my need to explore with others is still quite intense, and that I (NT) am not as home-building-centered as many people are (although I was quite nest-building during pregnancy and with a baby), my wish to help people who needed help has always defined my way of life a lot, and I always felt a pretty strong responsibility burden for the society as a whole.


As for my NT experience as a kid (with a then very close identical twin sister) I would rephrase this as: "It consists of playing together, observing at how people act differently and how society is, psychologizing together etc. Essentially you are trying to solve the puzzles of the human world." It is far less poetic, but I cant help.

The first 'type of love' or relationship that biostructure talks about is summed up, curiously enough, by a wonderful passage from the novel 'Niels Lyhne' by the Danish author, Jens Peter Jacobson. Although it describes a love that forms between boys in childhood, I think it can be applied to adult relationships, particularly as experienced by Aspiens:

'Of all the emotional relationships in life, is there any more delicate, more noble, and more intense than a boy's deep and yet totally bashful love for another boy? The kind of love that never speaks, never dares give way to a caress, a glance, or a word, the kind of vigilant love that bitterly grieves over every shortcoming or imperfection in the one who is loved, a love which is longing and admiration and negation of self, and which is pride and humility and calmly breathing happiness'.