Is it love or infatuation?

When I was young I read a letter to “Dear Abby” that said, in so many words, “I really like this guy; how do I tell whether or not it’s love or infatuation.” Her reply, in so many words: “When it’s real, you’ll know.” Not very helpful, not at all.

Paul Anka had a song about this:

Dr. Lindsey Doe has a video that's actually useful:

She says:

I’ve fallen half a dozen times. The most recent happened over these last few months and prompted an episode on the experience. It was so fun to feel like I had found something really special and then there was the agony of caring too damn much about a new person. I don’t know if I captured it all accurately in this episode but I tried. There was something hopeful about making a map for others falling in love; some peace in knowing you won’t have to feel as lovesick or confused as I did. You’re going through something amazing and you will get to stable ground soon enough.

I want to add that after making this video I came up with a better explanation of the final stage. In the episode, I call it Replay based on Dennis Kruissen’s song lyric about falling in love “once it’s over you can’t wait to press rewind” but now I like the name Falling Over instead. I think by this stage you’ve found your grounding, now you’re falling over from a standing or sitting position, not falling down an emotional chute. It’s also a pun... falling over, and over, and over again.

She lists no less than eight stages: 1: Intrigue, 2: Euphoria, 3: Playing house, 4: Fitness testing, 5: Consumption, 6: Acceptance, 7: Crystallization, and 8: Replay. She then observes (4:28):

I think it’s helpful to note these stages while numbered don’t have to be linear. In fact it probably looks more like a squiggle. We might go twitterpated to accepting to consumption then intrigue rewinding and or replaying stages subconsciously and consciously. Moving around is normal and in the words of Jacqueline Kost, something you “repeat over and over as you work on the relationship.” Maybe you fall in love again with the same person, maybe with new people, serially or at the same time.

To which I will add – not that I've got any particular wisdom on this – that at some time you may decide that you are going to stick with this one. So you will get married, or commit without undergoing the legal process, as is sometimes the case. And guess what? You still go through phases. It is not and will not be clear sailing. That's not how the ocean is. But now you are committed. You weather the storms together.

.....Alas, or perhaps not. As is sometimes the case.