What is Love? Insights from Belarusians to Help You Fall in Love

As Valentine’s Day approaches, we inevitably ponder: what does this holiday mean to me personally? More precisely, what is love? We posed this question to experts—renowned writers and psychologists. Interestingly, they all unanimously distinguished love from infatuation, providing compelling arguments. Read on, as the reflections of our heroes are captivating.

Natalya Batrakova, Writer

“Love is the transition of infatuation from quantity to quality”

About 10 years ago, an acquaintance of mine—a self-sufficient, financially secure man with graying hair—suddenly asked, “Natasha, you write about love. Tell me, how can I fall in love again? Truly. I understand that passion, fervor, and madness will fade like any firework. But I want love to stay within me, to grow roots, to live inside with its small, modest celebrations, so I can silently converse with it, warm it, wrap it up, and put it to bed.”

This man, accomplished and mature, sought a conscious feeling to cherish and nurture, to smile at, and sing lullabies to when it sleeps inside him. “And even if I die, I want it to live on.” For him, love is not an object but the feeling itself. For me, love is a bouquet of different feelings that cannot be combined into one whole by mere desire or whim!

Love does not grow from nothing. But if it comes, it must be cherished and nurtured daily, or it will take offense and leave.

Love is the transition of infatuation from quantity to quality. Many falter at this stage, lacking the strength for daily, routine, and inconspicuous work without bright celebrations. They do not understand that love requires not only taking and demanding but also giving warmth and tenderness, nurturing, and cherishing. We have rights and duties towards love. And one thing I know for sure: love does not coexist with pride and excessive selfishness.

But how beautiful love makes us! Our thoughts and actions become luminous; a person changes externally and smiles more often.

I remember riding a night bus, turning my head, and seeing a girl smiling in her sleep. I immediately knew she was in love!

Love is a great happiness, a gift from heaven that must be cherished, enjoyed, and appreciated every minute it lives within you.

Love is magic. We do not control it, but we can preserve and save it.

Alexander BELTSE, Systemic Psychologist, Coach, Biochemist by Training

“For love to burn, we must constantly sacrifice something”

Love is one of the most natural states of a person, like serenity and joy. We are usually in a state of love when nothing else interferes. If we remove everything that hinders us from life, nothing will remain in us but love. Because this feeling lives within us on its own, and the question for each person is how to approach it.

In Greek, there are three words for love: “eros”—passionate love with a biological nature lasting from 8 to 36 months (time to conceive, give birth, and slightly raise a child), after which sexual attraction based solely on hormones fades. There is “philia”—a calmer love that lasts long, transitioning from receiving love to giving love.

And finally, there is “agape”—love in the most sublime sense, without reasons, causes, or conditions. Young people, speaking of love, most often mean “eros,” more mature couples mean “philia,” and only very rare couples manage to translate their relationship into a state of sublime, eternal love.

If a couple’s relationship type is “from body to body,” it is a purely consumerist approach, and no one has yet managed to build something strong on it.

When two people walk side by side, respecting each other, and can take the best from each other, it is already close to love—”from feeling to feeling” relationships.

The “from heart to heart” relationship type, where a couple can see each other’s flaws, accept them, and transform them into good, integrating the best qualities of the other into themselves, when a couple has a common goal, is almost ideal. Because reaching the fourth type of relationship—”from soul to soul,” where two become one—is granted to very few. And it is possible only when both are on the path of spiritual development.

One of the symbols of love is a pink, chubby Cupid. And what happens when Cupid’s arrow pierces the heart? What does it kill there? Egoism. As soon as egoism dies, love appears.

Why does this state not last long? Because the ego does not want to die. And when it regains victory over love, a person begins to notice flaws in the other.

The phrase “I love you, but…” appears. And we gradually cut parts from our loved ones: don’t wear this, don’t invite your mother… We adjust the person to an ideal image because we no longer love the living. Our ego traps us. But relationships in a couple are always the art of compromise. For love to burn, we must constantly sacrifice something.

Pavel BEZMEN, Psychologist, Works with Post-Traumatic Syndrome from Unrequited Love

“Being in love (not loving) should not lead to marriage or having children”

Since school, we know there is infatuation and love. In my opinion, infatuation is the worst state. And it is terrible because a person in this state cannot adequately assess the surrounding reality.

Infatuation does not come on its own; a person induces this state based on the image that lives within them from childhood.

I will tell you a case from practice. A man walked into a clinic and saw a girl there—he fell in love! He experienced what we call love at first sight. He met this girl, started communicating, and gradually realized she was not his person: they had different views, goals, and lifestyles. But he could not let go of her.

Then, of course, there was a painful breakup, and he suffered. Time passed, everything settled, but he, like me, was interested in the question: what is love?

Being in love and loving are different states. Being in love is a state of passion, a state of madness, a state of hormonal surge. And in this state, a person cannot adequately assess reality. Therefore, being in love (not loving) should not lead to marriage or having children.