Many Ways to Love: Lessons from Being Single

For the girl in her 20s who is deeply yearning for love, romantic love isn’t the only way to express and receive love, and I know that's not what you desire to hear! But I promise you can only elevate the way you love by acknowledging the horizon of options to express the most beautiful expression of life. There are eight different types of ways to show love to people in your life, including yourself.

Agape- love for humanity 

Philautia- self-love

Pragma- everlasting love

Philia- friendly love

Ludus- playful love

Storge- familial love

Mania- obsessive love

Eros- romantic love

Now, I am not a relationship coach nor in any position to educate others on dating, how to build your love life, or how to love. However, I am a woman that is in her early 20s who understands the desire of eros love and often become overconsumed with thoughts of what eros love could bring. At times I either dismiss the other expressions of love or tend to put romance on a pedestal. I'm not necessarily proud of those moments but I'm a human that feels drawn to the drowning feeling that comes with falling in love– spontaneity, desire, and passion. Not that you can't experience those emotions in other areas of love, but I would argue eros is the love we have been taught to desire the most. Through social media, TV, movies, music, and more. For some, people were already taught to desire and saw eros love in their own home. 

Now we are in a position to design what we want love to look like for our adulthood now. Since I was a child, I have desired the fairytale love story, dreaming of the way my prince charming would treat me, opening doors for me, waiting for the right moments for our intimate desires to be fed. Loving kisses and deep confessions. For others who had a different perspective of eros or who had a healthy learning process and experience in dating would probably scoff at my younger self’s ideology about love, because in my teenage years and early twenties I definitely learned a couple of lessons. Not to say there aren’t men that are romantic and chivalrous because I know they do. However, during my time in dating, I was so focused on what I envisioned in my love life that I didn’t build on my philautia love and ended up being with the most inconsiderate and boundary-less beings when it was just a reflection of how I thought I deserved to be treated. The biggest lesson I had to learn is how I value myself in the space of dating.

And girl! I know, if anyone is annoyed by this statement more than me, it's me. But I needed to work on myself immensely. To make it very clear I don’t speak for the girls who haven't been in a relationship because that message isn't for you, and I understand the yearning for love as a late bloomer girly. However, I jumped into a relationship without knowing my boundaries. Sure! I wouldn't have known I would experience hurtful moments that are just unavoidable but certain things were. Where were my boundaries such as spiritually, could you be someone who didn’t believe in God? Or could you be with someone with different political views?

Could you be with a different work ethic and drive than you? I know my answers now, but these were questions I didn't ask beforehand. After stepping away from dating, I decided to spend more time with myself to deepen my philautia ,and I was deeply uncomfortable with myself, and I was for a while. Something as small as going places by myself felt awkward and boring. That's when I had to ask myself

 “Do I find myself awkward and boring?” Because if that's the case here, I had to do something about that immediately. There were a time and place before I was in a long-term relationship where I didn't feel this way and could hang out by myself. Yet here I was still feeling uncomfortable. So, I pivoted into another pocket of love that I knew the most and felt so familiar, which was my family. Familial love was the feeling that felt like second nature. I am so grateful to experience a love so warm and comforting that I felt since childhood and hopefully for the eternity of my life. This love has always felt so gentle and sweet, I never felt the need to perform. 

When I'm around family, I become the little girl from Jersey that everyone in my family knows, loud, rambunctious, funny, chaotic, yet sweet child. After experiencing eros love, leaning on the women in my family opened my eyes to something I didn't know could happen which was deepening my relationships with my family. I didn't know this love could grow deeper and safer than it already did. Also arriving at another realization that is humorously known that romantic love wasn't everything. Younger me put romantic love on a pedestal that no one could compete with, its romantic love was grand! And it was the love that sealed my life together, making it whole. But my family?! My God, I can't even express the level of comfort and deep love I have for the women in my family, especially my mom. 

I am free, I am safe, and I am loved on the highest altitude to exist around her presence.

I would cry in my mother’s arms for days when I would experience the heaviness of my anxiety that felt unbearable and there she would be there to hold and reassure me with love and passion.

“You will be okay”

“I know you can do this”

“Anything you want to do, I know can do it”

When she comforts me with faith and intent that I am more than my hardships and no matter what state I was in, I was loved. That love I would only be able to experience through the love of a man. Not because I won’t find vulnerability and consistency in eros love but because no one can copy or possess the existence of my mother’s love, simple. Now think back on times on how I view love as being one track, but in those moments of familial love as an adult was far greater than what a man could provide for me, and vice versa. 

Once I started to really practice philautia, I started to experience the greatest love. The others are important but tend to circulate from one to the other depending on where you are in life. But philautia is consistent because you will always be here, it's the highest and greatest form of love. Without self-love, I would never know what I need and truly desire out of eros love if I didn't get a deeper understanding of myself. Without self-love, I would not be able to pour into agape or philia love. If I feel so low about myself, how could I encourage and uplift the people I love the most around me? So, I say all this, not discourage you from dating, or to stop desiring love. I say all this to say, if you are younger or older in an odd place in your singlehood do not be ashamed. Understand that loneliness will appear at times and it's okay to acknowledge it, feel it in your body and work it out through journaling, meditation, and even speaking out loud to yourself, realizing that this emotion is extremely normal and valid. Then to realize you may desire romance but then to go down the many avenues of love to release the romantic energy that you deeply crave. 

Personally, I would take the fairytale fantasy off of a pedestal in replacement of me and see how much love you receive back from it. Now for the girlies that are self-loving queens and have mastered philautia, congratulations continue to treat yourself the way you deserve. To the girls that are beginning their path of self- love and self-discovery, I'm so excited to see what you create, love, and desire. You're about to create a world that is truly so beautiful, it's your world and we are all just living in it!

So, no matter where you are in your journey of love and dating, whether you have a roster or none, or refusing to broadly date until Mr./Mrs. Right comes along. Know that you are the prize and a prize that is loved by many, so I can encourage you to dive deeper into many lakes and pools of love.