Main Difference – Love vs. In Love
Loving someone and Being in love with someone are two entirely different things. Similarly, the two terms Love and In Love refer to different things. For example, you love your best friend, but this does not mean that you are in love with him or her. Love refers to a strong feeling of affection. In love implies a strong feeling of affection as well, but this is a romantic feeling. Knowing the main difference between love and in love can help you to build a stronger relationship.
What is Love
Love is an intense feeling of affection. It is a strong and complex feeling tinged with shades of warmth, respect, protectiveness, care, affection, etc. The love we feel for different people is different. That is to say, the love we feel for our child is different from the love we feel towards a sibling. Loving your spouse is totally different from loving your parents. In ancient Greece, there were several different senses to ‘Love’; Storge indicates love for family and relations, Philia is love of friends, Eros refer to sexual and romantic love and agape is the self-emptying, pure love or divine love.
However, in popular usage we use ‘love’ to refer to objects, actions we like a lot. For example, consider the statements “I love ice cream” or “I love singing.” This indicates that the word ‘love’ is not only used to describe strong and intense human relationships but also to describe the things we like strongly. When we analyse this word in a grammatical sense, it is both used as a noun and a verb.
Noun:
“Her love for the children prompted her to take this decision.”
“They share a love of music.”
Verb:
“I love my mother.”
“I’d love to have a cup of coffee.”
“I love reading adventure books.”
What is Being In Love
When you say that you are in love with someone, this implies a romantic love. Being in love is associated with feelings like desire, attraction and passion. Always keep in mind that ‘in love’ can be only used to describe a romantic, passionate love.
It is said that when you are in love, a certain set of chemicals are released by the brain that leads to an increased heart rate, an intense feeling of excitement and a loss of appetite and sleep. Biological theories about being or falling in love indicate that being in love is not a permanent state. Unlike the term ‘love’, you can only use ‘in love’ when you are talking about a person you passionately love.
What is the Difference Between Love and In Love
Definition
Love is a strong feeling of affection you have for a close person.
In love refers to a strong feeling of affection, shaded with attraction and desire
Usage
Love is used to describe a feeling towards people as well as objects and actions.
The term, In love is only used in relation to a person you are intimately involved with.
Permanency
Love is more or less a permanent state.
Being in love is not a permanent state, often when ‘in love’ is gone, love remains.
