When y o u r in love

15 Things About Being in Love vs. Loving Someone

Romantic love is a key goal for many people. Whether you’ve been in love before or have yet to fall in love for the first time, you might think of this love as the pinnacle of romantic experiences — perhaps even the pinnacle of life experiences.

Falling in love with someone can feel exciting, even exhilarating. But over time, these feelings may settle into something that feels a little different. This love might seem mellow or calm. You might find yourself thinking “I love them” instead of “I’m in love with them.”

This transformation doesn’t necessarily mean there’s anything wrong with your relationship.

Loving someone instead of feeling “in love” with them simply illustrates how feelings of love evolve over the course of a relationship, especially a long-term relationship.

Being in love generally refers to those intense feelings that take over at the start of a relationship.

These include:

infatuation
happiness
excitement and nervousness
sexual attraction and lust

Here’s what these feelings might look like in action.

You feel charged and euphoric around them

It may not seem like it, but being in love is a somewhat scientific process. Falling in love involves a lot of hormones, which can supercharge your feelings and make them wildly fluctuate.

When you’re around the person you love, increases in dopamine and norepinephrine lead to feelings of:

pleasure
giddiness
nervous excitement
euphoria

Decreases in serotonin can fuel feelings of infatuation.

Sex hormones, such as testosterone and estrogen, also play a part by boosting libido and leading to feelings of lust.

Other key hormones, such as oxytocin and vasopressin, help cement your attraction by promoting trust, empathy, and other factors of long-term attachment.

You can’t wait to see them again — even when they’ve just left

Even after spending all day with your partner, you still feel lonesome when they leave. You wonder what they’re doing and whether they’re thinking about you. Maybe you already have plans to meet the next day, but you still wonder how you’ll manage until you see them again.

This is common when you’re in love. And while it’s certainly healthy to spend some time away from each other, that doesn’t mean you enjoy doing so.

If you can’t stop thinking about them even when you’re apart, you’re most likely enjoying that agonizing bliss of being in love.

Everything feels exciting and new

Being in love can change the way you see things. Even everyday activities like going to the grocery store can become more enjoyable.

You might also look at other things with new eyes. Many people in love feel more willing to try new things, or things they previously didn’t care for, simply because their partner enjoys them.

There’s nothing wrong with trying new things. In fact, openness to new experiences is a great trait to have. But it’s pretty common to feel swayed by a partner’s interests, so make sure you don’t feel pressured to go along with things you really don’t want to do.

You always make time for them

Typically, being in love with someone means you want to spend as much time with them as possible. Even if you’re busy, you probably find yourself arranging your schedule to see your partner.

This might also involve a desire to get to know more about them by exploring their interests. When love is mutual, they’ll probably feel the same way about you and want to spend just as much time getting to know your interests.

This is all pretty normal. It’s also common, however, for people in love to briefly “forget” about their friends.

Try to remember to spend time with your friends, too, instead of letting love completely sweep you away.

You don’t mind making sacrifices for them

In the first rush of being in love, you might feel completely dedicated to your partner, ready to do anything and everything to help them through a tough spot or even just make their lives a little easier.

Empathy and your fast-growing attachment can fuel your desire to be there for them and help them however possible. But the hormones involved in love can sometimes affect how you make decisions.

If you feel the urge to do something that would completely uproot or significantly change your life, take some time and think it through.

After some reflection, you may still want to quit your job and travel with your partner to a different country. But make sure you really want to do it for yourself, too.

Sacrifices can be part of any kind of love. In fact, partners who work to accommodate each other’s needs may have a stronger bond. But people in love have a tendency to charge forward and offer help without thinking twice.

You have fantastic sex

Sex doesn’t have to be part of a romantic relationship. But when it is, it can play a big part in falling in love with someone.

The intensity of the hormones involved can affect your sex drive, increasing your desire for your partner and the passion you experience during sex.

When you first fall in love, sex can also help increase closeness to your partner. Great sexual chemistry can make you feel good about sex and increase your desire to keep having it. Wanting to explore each other’s sexual interests usually doesn’t hurt, either.

You idealize them

Being in love can make it easy to idealize your partner’s best traits (great listening abilities, musical talent, warm smile) and gloss over the less than positive ones (doesn’t return texts right away, flirts with your friends).

It’s normal to focus on someone’s best side when in love. But it’s also important to watch for red flags or relationship incompatibilities.

If your friends point things out, consider what they have to say. They aren’t in love with your partner, so they have a clearer perspective and may notice things you miss.

Love takes a lot of forms, and it can change over time. These are some of the ways your feelings may change when you love your partner but don’t necessarily feel in love with them.

You’re secure in their affection

When you first fall in love, you might not only idealize your partner but also want to present an idealized version of yourself.

You might, for example, always try to look your best. Or maybe you try to hide what you believe are flaws that might turn off your partner.

But over time, as your relationship strengthens, you may feel more at ease being yourself. You don’t worry they’ll dump you if you leave dishes in the sink or forget to take out the trash. You accept that both of you will always wake up with morning breath.

This doesn’t mean you don’t make an effort to maintain this affection and help it flourish. It just means you’ve switched over to a realistic view instead of idealized versions of each other.

You don’t feel the need to hold back your opinions

If you’re in love with someone, it’s easy to take on their opinions as your own. Sometimes you may not be completely conscious of this.

You may find it easier to openly share your feelings with a partner you love and feel comfortable with. Love often conveys a sense of security, so you may not feel like you need to hide your feelings or opinions to protect the relationship.

Even when you have a small disagreement, you know you can talk through it.

You see (and accept) the good with the less than good

Your partner, like you, is an imperfect human. They have good traits, of course, which probably helped you fall in love with them. But they most likely have some aspects of personality or habits you don’t find so great.

Even the things that seemed endearing when you first fall in love, such as the way they brush their teeth at the kitchen sink, may become something you sigh and roll your eyes over.

Loving someone requires you to see them wholly and accept all their parts, just as they see and accept all of you. Minor flaws often don’t really matter over the long term.
But when something does bother you, you’ll probably feel comfortable enough to speak up about it and work to encourage and support each other through personal growth.

This doesn’t include serious red flags or signs of abuse. Always reach out to a professional if abuse is present.

Intimacy might require more effort

When you fell wildly in love with your partner, you probably had sex all the time. As your relationship stabilizes, you certainly still have sex, but maybe less often or with less intensity.

The first time you fall asleep without having sex, or spend a night alone, it might seem like you’ve lost something. You might even worry the relationship is failing.

But often this only means the demands of life have made it necessary to plan time with your partner. Sexual activity might happen less often, but the effort you put into connecting intimately can make those moments even better.

The relationship takes more work

It’s easy to give a relationship your all when you’re head over heels in love. The relationship might seem to progress smoothly, even flawlessly, and the two of you seem to be on the same page about absolutely everything.

This isn’t sustainable over time. Eventually you may need to prioritize your partner slightly less to take care of daily life.

Spending time together may seem less natural and easy, especially when you’re both busy or tired. But love means you keep trying and make an effort to show you care.

You feel deeply connected

Loving someone can involve a sense of strong connection and trust. You know your partner well enough to rattle off their likes and dislikes, values, and strengths without a second thought.

They’re probably the first person you turn to when feeling down and the first person you want to share your successes and aspirations with. You’re a team. Sometimes you might even feel like a single unit.

So, you know you love your partner, but you think you may not be in love with them any longer.

That’s perfectly all right. In fact, you might even feel a bit relieved to know your hormones have settled down a little.

Some people prefer the excitement of being in love. Others prefer the intimate, deep connection associated with long-term love. Many people work toward long-term relationships for this very reason.

What you want out of a relationship may make one seem better than the other, but healthy relationships are possible with either.

Research does suggest many people seek divorce after falling out of love. But no longer feeling in love doesn’t mean you have to leave your partner or that your relationship is doomed to end. It just means you may need to put in a little extra effort to recharge things.

You might feel sadness or regret if you feel your relationship has lost the “spark” associated with being in love. Maybe you want sex to be more spontaneous, or feel excited about seeing your partner instead of comfortable.

Talking to a relationship counselor can help you rekindle the feeling of being in love, but these tips can also help:

Maintain an interest in their thoughts and feelings. Don’t forget about everyday check-ins. Ask how their day’s going, making sure you really listen to their response.
Prioritize time together, including intimacy. This might mean dipping out of a work event early or taking a rain check on those movie plans with your friend.
Don’t forget maintenance tasks. Think of your relationship as a car you depend on to get to and from work. To keep it going, you’ve got to get regular oil changes, rotate the tires, and so on. Give your relationship regular tune-ups by making a conscious effort to communicate openly and offer affection. These don’t have to be big, over-the-top displays. A kiss to welcome them home can go a long way.

After making it past the early stages of infatuation, your feelings for your partner might become less intense. You may not long for their company in quite the same way. In fact, you might even enjoy time apart.

Don’t worry. This is pretty normal, and it doesn’t have to spell the end of things.

Long-term love involves commitment. If you and your partner devote effort to maintaining your bond, at the very least, you’ll probably have a strong relationship. And you just might keep that actively in love feeling alive, too.

Crystal Raypole has previously worked as a writer and editor for GoodTherapy. Her fields of interest include Asian languages and literature, Japanese translation, cooking, natural sciences, sex positivity, and mental health. In particular, she’s committed to helping decrease stigma around mental health issues.

18 Signs You're Falling in Love with Someone, According to Science

Wondering whether you're really, truly falling in love with someone? Chances are, you've probably already asked a close friend or family member for the telltale signs. And if they're like most people, they probably responded with "you just know," "it's hard to describe," or something equally vague—all of which, needless to say, are pretty unhelpful.

And you’re dying to know if they love you, too.

If you find yourself considering whether this person feels similarly and you look for for signs that they're missing you, too, that's another signifier, Jacqueline Olds, MD, an associate professor of clinical psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, tells Oprah Daily.

“Your stomach and heart may take a leap every time they contact you or suggest spending time together,” adds Olds, who has completed extensive research on long-term marriage, alongside her husband of 41 years, Richard Schwartz, MD. (The couples therapists cowrote Marriage in Motion: The Natural Ebb and Flow of Lasting Relationships.)

You even find their quirks attractive.

Perpetual apologizer? Neat freak? All (innocuous) traits of your beloved are fair game and welcomed when you’re falling in love. “You start to find everything about them irresistible," explains DeAlto. "That even includes their little quirks, their odd sense of style, and their particular way of doing things, which all become endearing.”

They make you feel better about yourself.

People in the throes of falling in love often report feeling like they know more, or can do more, according to Theresa E. DiDonato, PhD, an associate professor of psychology at Loyola University Maryland. She describes how an experience of “self-expansion” often occurs as people fall in love, meaning their own sense of self grows through their relationship with this new person. For example, someone whose partner loves hiking might start to see themselves as a hiker too.

You’re ignoring other attractive people.

Gone are the days of swiping right on dating apps or DM'ing other potential partners. If you realize you’re not as inclined to investigate those other fish in the sea, that can be telling, DiDonato tells Oprah Daily.

“Falling in love may correspond with changes in attention–specifically people in loving, committed relationships show less attention to other viable partners,” she says.

You feel the love everywhere.

Finding yourself suddenly enjoying small chat with your less-than-pleasant coworker, or striking up conversations with your crabby neighbor? Your loved-up vibes could certainly be radiating beyond your partnership, notes Pomeranz. "Falling in love can knock us out of autopilot and allow us to see everything and everyone in a new light. Love can contribute to an increased sense of well-being and lead to a positive outlook, which can extend far beyond the person directly in front of us."

You’re kind of freaking out.

And the most prominent sign you’re falling in love? It feels

right.

“I actually think for a majority of people it’s not a hard question and the answer is perfectly obvious to them,” says Schwartz. “And part of that is because one of the characteristics of being in love is this feeling of rightness and certainty and absence of doubt,” he adds. You might start to notice that you no longer worry whether you'll get ghosted or you don't even consider the possibility that they could be scared off by your collection of stuffed animals.

That's because, according to Schwartz, the parts of the brain responsible for social judgment and critical thinking go into a slower operation when we’re falling in love, and there isn’t the kind of scrutinizing, questioning, and assessing we may undergo in alternative circumstances. “Love is something we feel and, when we do, we say, ‘This is it.’”

Stephanie L. King

Stephanie L. King has had an obsession with words since she was seven and chronicled her life in a red and blue Bugs Bunny diary. She’s a poet who wrote for The Wall Street Journal and The Patriot News in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, before transitioning careers to become an English Language Arts teacher to talented urban middle schoolers. She’s also the brand new mom to a baby girl named Ella Grace and considers the sweetest fruit of her life her husband, Lionel. The reason for the slob on her pants? Her English bulldog, Ice. She lives in New Jersey, where she’s grateful for parking—but she will always be a New Yorker at heart.

Proven by science: 8 sure signs that you are falling in love

Love

Photo: Getty Images

By the way, when you have not yet had a crush on your ears, but are already close to this state, this can also be understood. Do you know how? Here are sure signs that you are about to fall in love. Tested and proven by science!

You are constantly looking at him

Well, everything is clear here - scientists could not remind. When you feel like throwing one more glance in the direction of that guy, it means that you are already a little fixated. We know this even without gentlemen scientists, right? :) nine0003

But here's a new one. For those who are already happily in love. Couples who often look into each other's eyes are usually much closer to each other than those who neglect these romantic nonsense. By the way, the effect was tested on strangers. And, imagine, even if you play “staring” with a completely unfamiliar guy for a while, you may experience a feeling of romantic attraction. Life hack ;)

You seem a little crazy

Do you feel a little crazy? Scientists from the Kinsey Institute say that this is quite normal for those who are in love. The brain of a lover, it turns out, looks the same as that of a person who has taken a drug. The hormone of happiness and pleasure dopamine is to blame for everything, which in both cases is released especially actively. Because of his actions, lovers sometimes behave like crazy. nine0003

Photo: Getty Images

You think about him all the time

And another happiness hormone, phenylethylamine, can be safely blamed for this, it is also called the “love drug”. Because of his effect on the brain, you can't get the guy out of your head no matter how hard you try. By the way, the same substance is released in your head when you eat your favorite chocolate and cannot stop at one bar.

You have often been stressed lately

Being in love provokes the production of the stress hormone cortisol, and this substance makes you worry and worry. Sometimes you can even feel the heat because of it. nine0003

You don't feel as much pain as usual

An interesting experiment was conducted at Stanford University School of Medicine in which participants were asked to look at photos of loved ones. It turned out that this blissful contemplation helps to reduce moderate pain by 40% and severe pain by 15%. So if your head stops hurting as soon as your eyes fall on your desk mate... Well, you get it :)0013

Everyone wants to impress someone they like. But if you notice that you are starting to copy almost all the hobbies of a pretty acquaintance, stop immediately. Are you sure you really need it?

Incidentally, scientists have found that happy couples do not share absolutely all of each other's interests. And that's okay. You can, of course, run to the fitness room for company, if you yourself are not enthusiastic about the sport, but you definitely don’t need to force yourself. Even when you are already together, you do not need to copy the guy, you just need to support. nine0003

You suddenly don't care about any dirty tricks

It's usually disgusting to watch someone, say, pick their nose. Now imagine this is being done by the guy you're sneaking a glance at. If, after what you just watched, you are still ready to kiss him right there, be sure - you fell in love. Do not trust? And scientists from the University of Groningen give a tooth! They say that sexual arousal (and what is love without it?) Paralyzes the feeling of disgust.

Photo: Getty Images

You're sweating more than usual

If you feel sick and sweat a lot, either you have something wrong with your stomach or you're in love. Being in love can cause the physical symptoms of stress (think cortisol), including nausea and excessive sweating. The trouble will end when you've been together long enough for you to settle in and start trusting the guy. Well, or just chill on your own.

Elizaveta Glagoleva

6 ways to understand whether you are in love or you like it

Love

Many girls, especially in adolescence, do not distinguish sympathy, affection and love. That is why it happens that you throw yourself on his neck, you convince yourself that this is love before the wedding and the crowd of screaming and terribly beautiful kids in the future, and then you suffer when the fairy tale does not go according to the script. Here are 6 ways for you to understand whether the prince is your boyfriend or just passed by. nine0003

Photo: Getty Images

You are in love if you accept all his shortcomings

Love differs from sympathy in that when someone sympathizes with us, we see good and bad sides in him, and we intend to correct the bad ones. But if we are in love, then we love absolutely everything in a guy, from his terrible passion for computer games to his inability to eat hamburgers neatly. If you notice his shortcomings, but are ready to put up with them, then you are definitely in love. nine0003

Photo: Getty Images

You are in love if your feelings are permanent

Sympathy is a very unstable feeling. Love is a little different. If your relationship has been going on for quite a long time, and there is no emotional swing like “I love” - “I don’t love”, then you can safely assume that you are in love. And your boyfriend probably too ;)0013

A person can be liked in different ways: emotionally, mentally and physically. And each level means something different. If you are comfortable with him on a mental level, this is most likely more friendship or admiration, on the physical level, an attraction that quickly passes, but the emotional level is the strongest. If you are emotionally comfortable with him, it is no longer just sympathy.

Photo: Getty Images

You are in love if you experience strong tactile and emotional sensations

It’s easy to fight sympathy - your brain never turns off and constantly tells you that something is wrong with this type: his friends are stupid, and he kisses badly, and some kind of unreliable, and in general that guy over there it’s also very personal… If so, it’s better not to wind yourself up, you’re far from falling in love, but if every touch is like an explosion and reverberates throughout the body, it’s definitely falling in love.

Photo: Getty Images

You are in love if you want something more

Sympathy begins with smiles, light touches, hugs and kisses. But only if you are truly in love (and not pressured by the opinion of society), you will want to move on. Yes, we mean exactly what you think. If you start thinking about intimacy more often and just can't keep your hands off the guy, you've outgrown sympathy.

Photo: Getty Images

You are in love if you pay close attention to the little things

You can always think when you just like the guy, but notice the little things only when you are in love. If you admire his dimples, if you are crazy about how gracefully he brings a fork to his mouth, if you have already studied all the moles on his face, ears and neck, if all the ridiculous things he does seem incredibly cool to you , you fell in love, girlfriend, congratulations.

Learn more

When y o u r in love

15 Things About Being in Love vs. Loving Someone

You feel charged and euphoric around them

You can’t wait to see them again — even when they’ve just left

Everything feels exciting and new

You always make time for them

You don’t mind making sacrifices for them

You have fantastic sex

You idealize them

You’re secure in their affection

You don’t feel the need to hold back your opinions

You see (and accept) the good with the less than good

Intimacy might require more effort

The relationship takes more work

You feel deeply connected

18 Signs You're Falling in Love with Someone, According to Science

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And you’re dying to know if they love you, too.

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You even find their quirks attractive.

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They make you feel better about yourself.

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And the most prominent sign you’re falling in love? It feels

Proven by science: 8 sure signs that you are falling in love

You are constantly looking at him

You seem a little crazy

You think about him all the time

You have often been stressed lately

You don't feel as much pain as usual

You suddenly don't care about any dirty tricks

You're sweating more than usual

6 ways to understand whether you are in love or you like it

You are in love if you accept all his shortcomings

You are in love if your feelings are permanent

You are in love if you experience strong tactile and emotional sensations

You are in love if you want something more

You are in love if you pay close attention to the little things