Yeap, we'll theorise everything. We've even got Love down to the T.

It's almost depressing how something as precious as Love can be broken down and analysed in such a crass and grotesque manner. If Psychology has taught me nothing else this semester, I have definitely walked away with weird and odd perceptions of the way we grow up (sexually speaking).

Enter Oedipus. Written by Sophocles, he told a tale of a man who killed his Father unwittingly and married his Mother. To cut a long story short,the Oedipus Complex states that all young boys grow up lusting after their Mother but are scared that their Father will castrate them and that all young girls grow up with affection for their Father but are afraid that their Mother will cast them off.

Hmmm...

Sigmund Freud also formulated a fantastic series of stages called the Stages of Psychosexual Development. Divided up into five main stages, they categorise our development from birth to beyond puberty:
1) Oral
- Satisfaction from eating, sucking etc.
2) Anal
- Interest in and satisfaction from anal region.
3) Phallic
- Genitals become source of satisfaction.
4) Latency
- Boys and Girls spend little time together.
5) Genital
- Genitals become main source of pleasure.
I don't really think I need to go into further detail, no?

Then there's Sternberg who came up with the Triangular Theory of Love.


Liking/Friendship: intimacy but no passion or commitment.
Romantic Love: intimacy and passion but no commitment.
Companionate Love: intimacy and commitment but no passion.
Empty Love: commitment but no passion or intimacy.
Fatuous Love: commitment and passion but not intimacy.
Infatuated Love: passion but not intimacy or commitment.
Consummate Love: strongest form of love consisting of passion, intimacy and commitment.

There you have it, a totally unemotional account of love and how it develops as we grow up. How... Heartwarming.