I DON'T SAY "LOVE" -- I SAY ATTACHMENT

kinds of attachment

We know that most of each of our separate identities is subconscious and "animal" which we have rejected as "animal," meaning lower and simply to be denied.  But "desire" in the sense of "lust" is one of our most driving aimpulses because it is linked to survival.  If it were not so overwhelming and persistent, we wouldn't be here.  And yet sex drive is not equally distributed, so that some have too much and some have too little, some are able to rechannel and shape it while others are not.  Nothing else is so interwoven with culture except food, shelter, and power.  In many places women, children. aged, disabled and lesser powered people will not survive except through attachment to more powerful people, usually men, often "entitled" people. 

I've been deeply impressed by the Porges/Bowlby/Winnicott accounts of the formation of an individual human through interaction between mother and child and the continual morphing of development through experience, usually toward growth.  Originating biologically in the origin of a new human being, parasitic on and internal to an adult, survival can depend on the continuing relationships of life, which are closely related to family, organizations, work, and other structuring in society.

I've insisted that "love" is used so indiscriminately that it refers to everything from dessert to deep human involvement.  The word is emptied by sentimentality that requires gifts and declarations of fondness that are really bondage.  Instead I use the word "attachment".

But what does "attachment" refer to.  There seem to be many kinds of attachment, which is at heart the magnetism that is in relationship, causing some people to attach to others for a host of reasons and in many ways.  In one guise --  an "incarnation" -- the biological dimension is dominant and driving, originating in the body as much as a cat in heat.  In another it may be faint, if present at all, the energy diverted.  We say the reason for variation is "hormones" and they probably do have a lot to do with it.  But hormones may be reacting to causes outside the body, like climate, light level, art forms, unseen memories, or danger.  

I thought I'd take time to make a list.  It's hardly complete.  Some may be wrong.  The opposite "attachment" is DEtachment, no relationship.  Those who declare the planet "loves us" and so on are talking about something else.  The universe, the sun and planets,however anthropomorphized do not love humans, are neither good nor evil.  They are simply there, indifferent.  If we attach to them, they do not attach to us.

1.  "Limerence" is a term that refers to the kind of attachment that is being in love in a classical romantic sense, a near derangement and euphoric obsession with another person.  "Twitterpated", besotted, infatuated.  Before orgasms became the ultimate bliss (momentary) the idea of this emotional valence was considered the ultimate, esp for women.

2.  "Open" love is a modern idea about attraction that is in the moment and doesn't exclude others.  Results vary.

3.  Habituation.  Couples persist because that's what they're used to doing.

4.  Essential physiological/biological, like the idea of pheromones that signal animals and insects.

5.  Parental or quasi-parental.  The impulse to help, to shelter, to protect, and to support growth.

6.  Shared interests or emotions.  Both people are interested some third thing.  

7.  Religious.  This may be declared as a feature of belonging to a religious position.  Part of anthropomorphism is declaring that a mythic figure "loves" humans who "believe."

8.  Painful.  Sharing physical or mental pain can bring people together, either when both are hurting or when one is hurting and the other is trying to heal. 

9.  Affinity: belonging to an organization like Elks or Boy Scouts.

10.  Small things:  taste in food, sense of humour, comfortable room temps

11.  Patterns, expectations, templates, culture scripts

12.  Echoes from the past, being reminded

13.  Crushes, focusing emotion on an imagined aspect of someone, possibly a celebrity.

14.  Ambition: the effort to achieve which might be admirable like discovering a cure or dubious like "House of Cards."

15,  Repetition compulsion: a deep mistake addressed with unconscious reliviing, like a bad experience with a drunk or narcissist that one hopes to handle better.  It might be unconscious.

16.  Loneliness.

17  Pity.

18.  "Maternal" impulse or son/daughter impulse towards a parent.

19.  Sensory triggers:  music, smell, skin sensation.

20.  Sympathetic dialogue or challenge even via print in letters or email 

21.  Negative emotions are still attachments.  Jealousy to protect an attachment.  Hatred, maybe with good reason. Competition or other obsessions.  Think of the abused marriage partner who isn't willing to leave.

One formulation of a successful attachment is being enough alike to understand each other, but enough different to be interesting.

Any of the dozen sex identity/gender variations or the hundreds of age levels could multiply this.  Add place, add point in time, add politics,  and you've got a powerful novel.  We are all interested in how attachment works whether Hallmark has a card for that or not.