Love and more LOVE

One of my favorite topics to talk about is LOVE! Love is always the answer to me in any situation. I try to love everyone that crosses my path and love as Jesus loves. AGAPE! I definitely notice I love every person who crosses my path a bit differently. No I do not love anyone less, it is just different! There are so many different types of love and emotions out there tied up into that one little four letter word. So lets break down the different types of love IN GREEK! xoxo

A while back I wrote about the four main types of love in the Greek Language. Philia, Eros, Agape, and Storge. Quick recap on those four: Eros is the sensual romantic type of love. Philia is the friendship type of love that is more all encompassing. Storge is the family type of love and then Agape is God’s type of love, unconditional and sacrificial. Here is the link so you can go read more about those four words in detail, because each type is very unique and beautiful in its own right. (Blog Link) Today however, I am going to talk about three lesser-known Greek types of loves. Still important in their own ways they just aren’t talked about as much as the main four I talked about in my first blog post. These three are: Pragma, Ludus, and Philautia.

Pragma– The first word that comes to my mind when I hear this word is pragmatic. Being Practical, realistic, and sensible about things. Pragmatic people are usually very rational and very unsentimental. That is exactly what this type of love is as well. A love or more a partnership built on similar goals and interests usually. Most often this type of love is not sexually related at all and is more about compatibility. Many arranged marriages back in the day were based on pragma. The couple was committed to each other, but often enough it was just a partnership and for the end all goal of bearing children, creating a family, and continuing the bloodline. Also because of the partnership and compatibility often the partner will turn a blind eye if their person is doing something not entirely the best. They will support them through thick and thin, but at the same time there is still something missing because the partnership is for practical reasons only.

Ludus– Ludus is a non-committing type of love. This type of love is playful, flirty/teasing. Ludus is a no strings attached, and maybe even multiple partners’ type of love. People sometimes compare it to Eros, but it is more like Philia in a lot of ways because Ludus is a more mature and casual type of love. Both parties are usually self-sufficient as well. Ludus is a love that loves to love a lot, if that makes sense, (a lot of loves in that sentence haha) so multiple partners is very common because there is no commitment and a lot of love to be given out. It is all about having fun with Ludus. Just have fun, don’t commit, no strings attached and just go with the flow.

Philautia– philautia is self-love. Self-love is tricky because it can be either good or bad. You want to have love for yourself, but you don’t want to be full of yourself and self centered. There is a big difference. One is healthy, one is not. The Greek word hubris is the more focused word for the self-centered type of love. Proud and self centered, in Ancient Greece, this word was used if people thought they were better than the gods. Which was deeply frowned upon and the word hubris carries a strong negative connotation. Phiautia however, can be good or bad since self-love can be considered confidence in oneself as well, which is a good thing! Being confident in yourself helps with resilience and loving all those around you because you have a strong foundation of loving yourself and being secure in your own person.

It is really amazing to me that there are so many different types of love. You could tell multiple people you love them and mean completely different types of love for each person. In the English language however, there aren’t different words to describe love really so often enough the word love gets over used. If only all these Greek words were more common and people could explain how they loved those around them. I wanted to share these last three as well since you don’t often hear about them as much. They are often over looked, but very important in their own right. Have you experienced any of these three loves or met people who loved these ways?

Picture by Stephan Bullard

 

Burton, N., M.D. (2016, June 25). These are the 7 types of love. Retrieved from https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/hide-and-seek/201606/these-are-the-7-types-love