Many Kinds of Love

Theme song: Say No To Love

This is one single mama who is happy to be writing, just for a minute, for herself and her readers and not a client!

Watch Anna amek typos.

See Anna's imagination run with no thought for SEO!

What liberation to write with love straight to my small but might group of dedicated readers. Yes, friends, that's you.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: I love you.

And there oughta be a name for that.

For what?

For the love a writer has for a reader. If there isn't, I have not one problem making up the term (After all, William Shakespeare invented 1,700 of the approximately 17,000 words he uses in his writing and I'm, well, no Shakespeare -- but if Shakespeare's doing it I probably should be, too. No?).

Bringing me squarely to the true point of this blog post which is to elucidate as many kinds of love as I can. If I miss any, I'm counting on you to either fill in, or make up, the blanks.

Colibri Love List

Words I made up:

• Reader-love (I'll take the credit): Love a writer has for a reader
• Writer-love (I'll take the credit): Love a reader has for a writer
• Loss-love (I'll take the credit): The sense of love inspired by loss
• Life-love (I'll take the credit): The primal desire to stay alive

Words other people made up:

• Need-love (Thank you C.S. Lewis): Love a child has for a parent
• Gift-love (Thank you C.S. Lewis): Love for humanity
• Appreciation-love (Thank you C.S. Lewis): Love for pleasures such as nature

Greek words:

• Storge/affection (Thank you ancient Greeks): Familial love
• Philia/friendship (Thank you ancient Greeks): Friendly love
• Agape (Thank you ancient Greeks): Unconditional love
• Ludus (Thank you ancient Greeks): Playful (flirtatious or young) love
• Pragma (Thank you ancient Greeks): Long-standing love
• Philautia (Thank you ancient Greeks): Self-love as distinguished from narcissism

Other love words I like:

• Devotion: Love for God
• Infatuation: Love that doesn't last
• Puppy love: Rambunctious, innocent, young love

Love words I don't really like (and why):

• Nurture: Motherly love -- can't we come up with something better than this to describe such a powerful form of love?
• ??: Erotic love -- my problem with erotic and romantic love is that they are different, but some people like to call romance, sex and sex, romance.
• Eros/sensual (Thank you ancient Greeks): Romantic love -- see above.
• Homosexual love: Greek Love -- this is almost an insult, but I do believe same sex love is a specific type of love.
• Platonic love: Nonsexual love -- too general.
• Unrequited love: Love that isn't reciprocate -- I don't really believe in this kind of love. Read more.

That's a whole lotta love, to be sure.

Your Turn

Since everyone here knows this list is far from complete, I'm looking for love in the form of your own ideas and additions -- or subtractions if I've been redundant or covered something twice. Is that called additional love?