The 8 differences between love and affection

The feelings of love and affection can cause confusion, since they show some similarities and it is common for people to confuse them with each other. But far from being the same, they generate and imply different sensations.

If, despite the differences mentioned, you cannot distinguish whether what you really feel for someone is love or affection, speak and communicate how you feel or what your thoughts are can help you to clarify yourself, to see the situation with greater perspective and to know what opinion the other person has and how feel.

In this article we will talk about the differences between love and affection and we will explain how each term is defined, so that it is easier for us to understand its distinctive characteristics.

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Distinguishing between affection and love

To better understand the difference between love and affection, it can help us first to know how each term is defined. Both concepts are feelings, that is, complex subjective experiences that human beings experience towards another person or thing, but with the difference in intensity that each one entails.

1. Love

Love is an intense feeling that normally arises in reference to a person, which makes us want to spend time with that subject, spend life together, sticking together through the bad and good times. This feeling appears without us being able to decide, that is, we do not choose who we love. This impossibility of selection is observed above all in the love of a couple, the experiences lived with the other person are important but not enough to love them as a couple.

Romantic love is the type of love that most easily comes to mind, but there are other types of love, such as that of parents to their children.

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2. Dear

Affection is a feeling of moderate intensity normally directed at a person, although it can also be directed at an animal. We are concerned about the welfare of the subject and we want to spend time with him, we feel comfortable by his side. It is common for this affection to be expressed with positive and favorable behaviors towards the other, helping them to feel good.

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The main differences between love and affection

Now that we know better the definition of both terms, love and affection, we will focus on explaining the main differences, taking into account It counts different variables such as the intensity, already noted, the duration, the behaviors, the implication, the thought, the type of bond, among others.

1. Intensity of each feeling

As we have already mentioned the intensity of each feeling is different. In the case of love, it is linked to a much more intense feeling compared to affection, which expresses a feeling of moderate intensity. For this reason, when we fall in love with someone we say that we feel love for that person and not affection.

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2. Duration of each feeling

Related to the previous point of intensity, it is easy to deduce which feeling will last longer. Love tends to last longer, persisting over time for longer despite the occurrence of different situations; is more resistant. Instead, affection can be more variable and be present for a shorter period of time and then fade.

3. Links that are established with each feeling

We can feel affection for friends or colleagues, people with whom we spend time, we want them to be happy and we are concerned about their well-being, but without this feeling implying anything else. Contrary, we feel love for people very close to us, people with whom we share a large part of our day to day, such as our partner, our children or our parents, that is, we could consider the closest family.

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4. Change from one feeling to another

The two feelings are linked to a positive feeling towards someone, but as we have already said, of different intensity. In this way, it is possible that the affection we feel for a person ends up leading to love. On the other hand, the reverse process that goes from love to affection is more complicated, since as we have pointed out when we feel something very intense for someone it is difficult to reduce it. But it can happen, for example, in couple relationships, that when we separate we feel affection for the other person for everything we have experienced, but it is no longer love.

5. Implication of sentiment

When dealing with the intensity of different feelings, the implication of each one is also different. When we feel love for someone we would do anything for the other person; we do not hesitate to get 100% involved in his well-being, if he asks us for help we will be the first to act, we may even become more concerned about his well-being than ours.

Instead, when we feel affection, we do want the other person to be well, but we do not get so involved and neither are we willing to do anything for the other, their welfare will not be more important than ours.

6. love does not generate doubt

Especially when it comes to relationships, when we are getting to know someone or if we have already known them before, the feeling of love, of wanting to have something more with that person, is something that we will notice, by our way of acting, of thinking, how we feel when we are with him or with her. In other words, if you have to ask yourself many times if what you feel is love and you don't know how to answer clearly, it is most likely affection.

As we have already seen, love appears without being able to control it, that is, it does not have a clear explanation, but you feel different things for that person that do not make you doubt that what you feel is love.

7. Behaviors related to each feeling

Although the behaviors linked to love and affection may be similar, the intensity and way of performing them are different, externally it is possible to see this difference, for example if we look at body language, but in the end the person who will most notice the difference is the subject himself who does the action, since in a way linked to love, an internal sensation is generated that does not resemble any, it feels different.

8. Always in our thoughts

Another way to distinguish between the two feelings is to look at the times that person appears in our mind, in other words, when we love someone, we think about him or her almost continuously, there are things that remind us of them. In our day to day we remember them easily and we do not hesitate to carry out actions that we know they will like.

For example, when we go shopping we see some sweets that are the favorites of the person we love and we do not hesitate to buy them.

How to act when you don't know if you feel love or affection

If even knowing the differences between the two feelings, we do not know if what we feel is really love, the best option is talk to that person, that is, express how we feel, since it is very likely that he or she may also harbor the same doubt. Sometimes, for fear of "what will the other person think", we may block ourselves and we do not communicate how we feel, leaving in us the doubt and confusion of feelings.

Talking about it and externalizing our thoughts and feelings also helps us organize and name what we feel, at the same time that it allows us to know what the other person thinks. Friendship with someone, the affection we feel for him or her, may be confused with love and more so if we are going through a difficult time or we feel alone, in moments of weakness, where we have a close person by our side, we may confuse what really we feel.

In the same way, when we spend a lot of time with a person or our "selfish" part comes out and we are afraid that if begins a relationship spend less time with us, it may be more difficult for us to know for sure if what he feels is love or Dear. As we have already pointed out, all the aforementioned differences can help us clarify our thinking, but if you still don't know how you feel, facing the situation and talking to the person who causes us doubt is what better.

This conversation will not harm your relationship, will help make things clearer and know what you really feel. Think that not acting is much worse than leaving doubts, since if it's just love, it's just you will stay the same, but if you realize that you feel something else, you can lose a great opportunity if you don't you risk