Much Ado About Love ~恋 & 愛~

Here is a blog post on love, and my take on it…

Fortunately, for those who know happen to know Chinese and/or Japanese, love becomes a whole lot less messy when you learn to distinguish between the following: 恋 & 愛.

When translated in English, both of these characters mean love, albeit there is a subtle difference. My personal take on it is illustrated in this table below

※ Please note that I am not a native Japanese or Chinese speaker, but amongst discussion with some of my Japanese, Chinese, Taiwanese, and Hong Kong friends, the general consensus tends to be in agreement with the aforementioned)

Platonic love tends to be around an even mix of the two. In conversational speak, these terms tend to mix and overlap and are frequently seen as synonymous, particularly in Chinese. It is important to note if the "positive vibe" between one and another are nurtured feelings of 恋 towards someone often tend to develop into 愛 as time goes on.

For example, here is a true story in where the grey area between 恋 & 愛 cost my friend her boyfriend. 

I have a friend who had a boyfriend and she was able to separate 恋 and 愛 quite easily. For a guy, this would generally sound like the ultimate girlfriend. What he had here is something many guys dream about. A very cute girl who would let you be her boyfriend and at the same time, let you sleep around with other girls and NOT hate you for it. It was like her boyfriend could have his cake and eat it, GUILT FREE.

As with many things, this idea seemed good on paper and the rationale behind it was that her boyfriend would only be feeling 恋 towards the other girls he would be engaging in sex with whilst 愛 would only be a feeling shared exclusively only between her and him.

In reality, as things turned out, sadly she was mistaken as love (the transition from feelings of 恋 to 愛) tends to be a slippery slide. As time went on her boyfriend began having repetitive physical relations with another girl. This occurred so much so that 恋 eventually turned into something more reminiscent of 愛 which resulted in my friend's boyfriend leaving her for the new girl.

For those of you who still don’t get it, or aren’t sure what to be feeling when they see someone, here is a table with some percentages because we all love math.

On a personal note, for me my feelings towards my girlfriend must reach a percentage of at least 80% 愛 in order for me to consider her being my girlfriend. As you can see, that's just my own personal preference, and it does differ from what I preach.

As a lame semi-joke to warp this up, I will end this blog post on little tangent. Firstly, a little piece of advice is that I think it is important for sex (or at least sexual intercourse) NOT to occur early so in any relationship. Sure sex is fun and makes the two of you feel good and sure it proves that the two of you can be intimate but be warned. Having sex right from the word go doesn't leave much room for the relationship to blossom. This is because the game of love (or at least it's scorecard) can be summarized in this common analogy I've slightly modified.

First Base = Holding Hands/Kissing

Second Base = Heavy Petting

Third Base = Oral Sex
HOME Run = Sexual Intercourse

> HOUSEhold (Base) = Starting a Family

My rationale behind this suggestion for not having sex so suddenly is evident in this picture. Obviously, the only way to move up from Home Run is to move onto the Household (Base). Please note that I’m not necessarily saying wait until after marriage to have sex. As a matter a fact, I am sort of against the whole institution of marriage. What I am definitely suggesting is that if you see a person as a potential boyfriend or girlfriend that you try and avoid having sexual intercourse on/immediately after your first date. So unless that happens to be on the cards, I suggest it’s best you wait and let your relationship develop so that it will have something to blossom into, rather than letting it peak right at the start. It also gives you something to look forward to.

In my opinion, what a relationship boils down to is the ability for two to raise a family together, and hence, the term 愛 comes into the picture. If you think about it, the two extremities of the scale regarding you and the person you are dating is that you are either going to break up or live together for the rest of your lives which may possibly involve you creating a family together.

In saying that, 恋 is critically important especially in the early stages of love and fostering such a relationship. This is how the relationship between 恋 & 愛 becomes evident. In summation, one could say that it’s about getting the percentages right, and for you people out there, this is the way to figure out whether the person you have is a keeper or not.