Lee identified and described the ways people behave in interpersonal relationships. They are called Lee’s 6 Styles of Loving. It is a simplification – of course -
but I decided to mention it since the terms have grown into the theoretical approach as a good tool to name and study different types of love.
Three primary styles:
1. Eros – a passionate physical and emotional love to an ideal person based on aesthetic enjoyment (stereotypic romantic love);
2. Ludus (or ludos) – love as a game, conquest or sport;
3. Storge – love that slowly develops from friendship, based on similarity;
Three secondary styles:
- Mania (Eros + Ludus) – obsessive love with great emotional highs and lows; lovers tend to be very possessive and jealous;
- Pragma (Ludus + Storge) – realistic and practical love driven by the head, not the heart; undemonstrative
- Agape (Eros + Storge) – selfless, altruistic love
Clyde and Susan Hendrick based their research at Texas Tech University on these theoretic assumptions. Using the terms mentioned above we can say hat:
