How to tell whether it's love, like or lust

Jet, Sept 2, 2002

You are feeling something, but you can't quite describe it. Everything about your new mate has you floating on cloud nine. The relationship is only a few weeks old, but one thing you know is certain, you've never felt this way before.

Could it be that you're in love? Wait, maybe you just really, really like your new mate. Or, could it be lust? Now you're pondering how to tell whether it's love, like or lust.

It can be easy to confuse love, like and lust because love does contain elements of like and lust, especially in the early stages of a relationship, says Dr. Katherine Helm, a counseling psychologist and assistant professor of psychology at Lewis University in Romeoville, IL.

"Like and lust come first when we begin to develop a sense of romantic attraction to someone. In fact, we tend to use how much we like someone and our level of sexual attractiveness to them as an indicator of whether or not we can eventually enter into an enduring love relationship with them," says Dr. Helm.

"Like often includes feelings of congeniality and similarity to another person. We like partners we feel comfortable with, who listen to us, make us laugh, as well as someone who is supportive of us. Oftentimes, we like people with whom we feel a quick sense of connectedness," she says.

"Lust is a sexual desire ... You feel lust physically. When we lust after someone, we often feel infatuated with them and preoccupied with their physical appearance," explains Dr. Helm.

She continues, "By itself, lust can cloud our judgment and we can mistake the positive emotions we feel for the individual as love. However, lust by itself does not last. A love relationship cannot be built on lust alone because lust lacks an enduring quality. It can go as quickly as it came.

"Love involves truly knowing a person and being supportive of them at their best and worst. True love takes time to develop as well as understanding that both the love relationship and the individuals in it, are imperfect. Love is something that develops and hopefully deepens over time. Psychologists agree that there is rarely such a thing as `love at first sight.' Many times people become impatient with the process of developing a relationship and want to rush things. Thus, we tend to `go with our immediate feelings' of like and lust and believe them to be love. One way to avoid this pitfall is to take your time in developing and cultivating a relationship, really focusing on getting to know the other person, and to enjoy the process instead of rushing it."

Like and lust are the initial responses that most people receive, says psychologist Dr. Tiy-E "Dr. Love" Muhammad, author of Secrets Men Keep.

"They are creatures of sight and ambiguity," he says. "Love is what comes after getting through conversations and time spent with one another. Love is the creature of feeling."

Key characteristics of love, he explains, are time, patience and devotion. It also has longevity.

"People have this imaginary psychological process that rotates in their mind that says `love is perfect and when I find it, it must be 100 percent great.' No! No! No! Love is about taking the time to grow with one another. It's about finding out and accepting the other person's strengths and weaknesses. Love doesn't mean you are attempting to understand the individual because you never will. You must wholeheartedly accept a person for who and what they are. That's unconditional love."

Like, on the other hand, says Dr. Muhammad, means accepting a person and moving on. It is a generic term that everyone uses and is often temporary and thrives on acceptance. Lust, he maintains, deals with desire, attraction and sexual stimulation. He says that it too is temporary and is laced with an element of control.

But it isn't uncommon for people to often confuse the three, reveals Dr. Muhammad, because they haven't been taught any better. "People really don't understand and haven't been trained on how to properly love," he notes. "So most of our relationships don't have a solid foundation and finish based on like and lust and there's usually no longevity in either."

Dr. Muhammad says that society has put such a horrible stench behind the word lust. Truth be told, he adds, it isn't always bad.

"Lust is a longing desire or a person's sexual appetite. Without lust there is no love. If I don't lust for you, there exists a problem. It's a good thing to get up every day or week depending on your appetite and desire your mate. Lust becomes a problem (sin) when it occurs outside of the home that's already established. Lust is that initial attraction that sends a spark up your spine. Most relationships falter because everyone wants that flame of lust to become everlasting."

William July, author of Brothers, Lust and Love and Understanding The Tin Man, says that you can determine if you love someone because it's "the ultimate. Love is going the distance. It's a process, not a destination. It's when a couple reaches a deep connection beyond money, looks, even sex. It's when a couple can work through the hard times, even when they're at odds with each other. It's a strong, healthy process, not a dependent one in which someone is staying out of fear."