Can This Be Love? How Long Does Falling In Love Take

We love the idea of love. Who wouldn’t want to feel loved? Some people have happy and early realizations of love while others take their due time in realizing and accepting they are in love. For centuries, the idea of true love is in debate. While misogynists believe that true love doesn’t exist and the only person who can love you in the true and utmost form is yourself, those with rich hearts believe that true love exists in the world. It is believed to be one of the purest forms of love and if you are fortunate enough to find it hold onto it like one would on to dear life. Hopeless romantics believe that one should always try to seek their true love in the world and that true love reaches to us in one way or another.

True or not, just love in the literal sense is a blessing in itself. It’s hard to define true love since love has various definitions and takes innumerable approaches to manifest itself. You will always find the romantics around use the term “a fairytale romance or love”! There is no doubt that love is a feeling but along with being a feeling love is also an action. You can’t keep the feelings of love alive without actions and you can’t force someone to love you just with your actions. Love is dynamic enough to oscillate between feeling and actions. 

True love isn’t always about living the fantasies which you weave meticulously through your teenage years or the untainted depiction of affection which the fiction world shows you. For a common man, true love is simple. If you happen to find your way in a relationship that is strong and lasting and where you feel genuinely happy, satisfied, and passionate, you are in true love. True love is found when both men and women remove all the shades and skins of their pretense in front of each other: when their true self is revealed. Real love is when with your undisguised hearts and esteems you amalgamate with each other effortlessly.

Feeling just attraction towards someone isn’t love. Most of the time attraction and interest come from infatuation and when infatuation is taken as love it can often turn into tragedy and catastrophe. When you are driven by unreasonable desire with no sense of constraint and sanity you are just infatuated, not in love. Sometimes infatuation does end up in love but many times when the infatuation ebbs away with time and love has not been born to fill up the space the connection severs. 

Instead of being driven by infatuation, it’s better to be driven by love. Love is relentless and reassuring. It’s both the calm before the storm and the calm after the storm. Love survives the storm. Below are some points that differentiate love from infatuation. 

Infatuation is an instant attraction and it can ignite the spark with a rollercoaster speed. Just like the prompt kicking off, there can be a hasty ending. While love on the other hand, incessantly takes its due time to grow. It explores all the white and grey areas and stays with us for a lifetime.

Infatuation is like two magnets attracting each other, typically, on a physical level. Infatuation craves physical nearness and intimacy. The couple has the physical desire as their priority. While love demands both emotional and physical bonding in a relationship.

Infatuation does not let you trust your partner. It makes you jealous and dominating. Love lets you trust your partner and understand him/her. Love keeps the balance in a relationship.

Infatuation gives no time to scrape off the emotional barrier and permit the uninhibited you to come to the surface. It can leave you feeling suffocated and self-destructive. Love is a remedy to your sufferings and melancholy. It makes you a better person and lets you believe in yourself.

When you are infatuated with someone either you perceive them as perfect in the start or you want them to be perfect. In love, you accept perfection isn’t attainable. It’s just a fantasized idea and that you and your partner can always work to be better versions of yourselves.

Infatuation has weak grounds and the relationship can end abruptly even on minor issues. Love is erected on strong pillars and fixes the problems instead of letting go. It holds on and doesn’t let go.

It’s hard to tell apart the difference between loving and liking. Many times the person themselves doesn’t realize if they are in love with someone or they just like them. So the question is how we tell apart love from liking. Is what you are feeling a deep-rooted love or an intense liking. What exactly is the difference between “I love you” and “I like you”?

You can like someone for their physical appearance. Maybe you find them too pretty or too handsome to turn away.

Love goes beyond physical appearances. Many relationships do start with physical attraction but love comes into the picture when the couple understands each other on a deeper level.

When you like someone and are near them you feel self-conscious. You want to be on your best behavior and best appearances. You act to impress.

When you love someone you are your natural and unreserved self. You don’t act to impress the person you love.

When you are just experiencing liking for someone their unpleasant or awkward sides turn you off and bring you down from ecstasy to disappointment.

When you are in love, the person’s embarrassing or imperfect sides don’t affect you. You are accepting of their flaws and love them regardless. As the saying goes, “Love is not blind. It does see but it does not mind.”

If frequent fights tire and frustrate you and disagreements make you feel burned out it is not loving but just liking.

When you like someone you are not cut out to endure the fights and disagreements and still go on. The unevenness and dark times of a relationship extinguish the feelings of liking.

While in love even when you are angry and pissed off with your partner you still don’t fall out of it. You hold on to them regardless of the disagreements. Most of the time you calmly sit down and discuss the issue, you agree to disagree and accept the same.

While some people claim that falling in love can be instantaneous, some believe that love is more of a process that takes time to initiate and prosper. According to psychology, if your heartstrings strum at first sight of someone it’s more because of the attraction you feel for the person than love. The time frame fluctuates according to the person and the couple since love is a variable feeling. Its pace and intensity depend on the individuals. You might be with someone for years and still not feel genuine love for the person whereas you can start feeling the pull and stirrings for someone in a few days. That means you share compatibility with the person and your pheromones are at work with them!

According to a survey, men take on an average of 88 days to say “I love you” while women take an average of 134 days. On the whole, it's not that you can’t have genuine and strong feelings for someone in a short span, you sure can. However, most of the time those feelings are either liking or infatuation which do feel a lot like love in the start. So, it’s healthy for both you and the other person to take time to explore your feelings and name them before jumping to the idea of love. Sometimes you are so obsessed with the idea of love than a mere attraction can make you think you are in love.

Therefore, if you want to know how long it takes to fall in love, you need to give your feelings some time for them to grow and make sure if what you are experiencing is love or not.