Love comes in many shapes, sizes and spectrums. There are some who are driven to madness by love and there are others who feel scared to love at all. While the former, a type of love style called love mania, is marked by intense passion and fear of loss, the other is philophobia. It is a deep, often debilitating fear of love, which can prevent people from seeking and building true connections.
Both represent extreme ends of the emotional spectrum. Here’s what these intense forms of love reveal about us.
1. Love Mania
Imagine being a young adult in love. For some, they may love their partner’s company to the extent that not being with them makes them feel lost.
In a classic study published in the Journal of Personality Assessment, a 19-year-old male undergraduate spoke of the time spent with his girlfriend as being in “paradise.” But he also acknowledged that “There has to be some sort of middle ground between being in paradise and being very anxious about things, feeling as if I have no home. With me a lot of relationships tend to feel as if they are very strong, or else they don’t really exist too much.”
This is an example of desperate love, also called mania or obsessive love, where one gets extremely possessive, goes through emotional highs and lows and constantly fears abandonment.
Psychologists identify it as one of the six classic love styles in John Lee’s Colors of Love theory. The six love styles are Eros, Ludus, Storge, Mania, Agape and Pragma.
Eros is marked by passionate, romantic love focused on physical attraction and intense emotion. Ludus refers to playful, game-like love that values fun and avoids deep commitment. Storge is a slow-growing, friendship-based love rooted in trust and shared values. Mania is rooted in obsession; intense love marked by jealousy, dependency and emotional highs and lows. Agape is a form of selfless, altruistic love that puts one’s partner’s needs above one’s own. Pragma refers to practical, logical love that looks for compatibility and long-term suitability.
In his classic study published in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, John Lee says, “The typical manic lover shows the same intensity and preoccupation as the erotic lover, yet the same desire to hold back feelings and manipulate the relationship, as the ludic lover.” He suggests that though the mania lover may not have a specific type of partner they are attracted to, their very first feeling towards a mate may be one of dislike.
“The manic lover is obsessively preoccupied with the beloved, imagines all manner of rivals and disasters, and ignores any warning signs of difficulty in the relationship until too late. Yet he knows all along,” the author notes.
They crave validation, often feel insecure and may oscillate between extreme euphoria and devastating jealousy. Such love is rarely sustainable; there may be clear red flags and instability in the relationship. Interestingly, a person exhibiting this type of love is likely aware of that. Yet, they willfully submit to their senses and feelings.
2. Philophobia
For many, the idea of an intimate relationship gets them spiraling. This is exactly the opposite of mania love, where you urgently want to escape from being too close to someone. It could potentially stem from a fear of love.
This is known as philophobia, the persistent, irrational fear of falling in love or forming emotional attachments. Unlike typical hesitations in relationships, philophobia is marked by intense anxiety at the prospect of emotional vulnerability, often rooted in past trauma, rejection or abandonment.
Individuals with philophobia may sabotage potential relationships, avoid intimacy or experience physical symptoms like rapid heartbeat or panic when confronted with romantic possibilities.
In her 2014 study on why we are scared to love, Romina Tavormina suggests that romantic love has become “liquid love” due to the idea of disposability in a consumerist culture. People are driven by the idea that they have choices outside of the person they’re with, and they’re willing to walk away when circumstances are unfavorable.
She also suggests that many people struggle to maintain long-lasting relationships as a result of philophobia. The origins of this fear appear to lie in early childhood relationships with their parents, where they may have experienced a lack of love. They find themselves reproducing the same dynamic in their adult relationships.
So, Philophobia can act as a defense mechanism to protect the individual from perceived emotional harm and prevent them from forming healthy emotional connections.
Both these extremes tell us more about ourselves than the other person. While manic love exposes our fears of abandonment and hunger for security, philophobia reveals a different kind of vulnerability. It reflects our fear of losing control or finally experiencing feelings of safety in love.
We fight against intimacy and try to stay as far away from opening up to others as possible, even when we crave connection. However, anytime we get vulnerable, we come close to experiencing true joy. But that comes with the risk of potential pain.
So high is the fear of losing one’s partner, that many either rush in right away, or refuse to let them in at all. It might be true that the more we have, the more we have to lose. But this shouldn’t stop us from finding love and intimacy that can last. Because what can break us, can also make us.
Do you keep pushing emotional intimacy away? Take this science-backed test to find out: Fear Of Intimacy Scale
