i went to the library the other day and found a book about communication. and in the book, surprisingly, i found this!
the triangular theory of love developed by psychologist Robert Sternberg. i never knew that it was a part of communication. my friend and i were just discussing this theory recently. it basically categorizes love in the context of interpersonal relationship by three different components, which are intimacy, passion and commitment.

the perfect love, consummate love, would involve all three components. and all the other six categories lack one of two of the three components. but because consummate love is so hard to achieve and even though achieved, harder to maintain, my friend and i were debating on whether romantic love or companionate love is better. was it better to lack commitment or passion in a relationship?

another thing i noticed is that the three on the bottom half of the triangle(infatuation, fatuous and empty love) all lack one particular component, which the other four all have, which is intimacy. the fact that the four also seem to me as more ideal types of love led me to one conclusion. intimacy is very important in a relationship. as it is the definition of intimacy : Which encompasses feelings of closeness, connectedness, and bondedness

Post written by
Tham Sue Fern
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Reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangular_theory_of_love