The word ‘Platonic’ formally means ‘not confined to physical attraction ’inspiring one’s mind and soul to feel the impact of divine love through an affectionate relationship that does not involve any sexual element. In other words, ‘Platonic Love’ refers to deep and non-sexual waves of feelings that float between a male and a female.

Young Generation and Platonic Love

It is generally believed that platonic love reflecting chastity is for spiritually developed people. People, especially the young generation living in 21st century and showing distinct inclination towards ‘romantic love’ to a great extent, hardly believe that ‘pure love’ is important because it creates an insatiable hunger for wisdom. According to the opinion of the young generation, Platonic Love is nothing but an ornamental theory of no great value.

Romantic Love

Romance is the intuitively gratifying realization of fervour and enigma associated with love. The word ‘Love’ generally refers to an assortment of different types of feelings, conditions and attitudes including intense interest for some interpersonal attraction.

Science defines ‘Love’ as an experiential learning for survival primarily performed to keep humans together against threats and to foster continuation of the species. “Love’ maybe defined as ‘strange fits of passion’ that is least understood in the light of logic.

Some say that a palpable heavy sensation felt at one’s heart for someone being longed for is ‘love’.  When someone is found absorbed in self-made feelings of longing that leave behind others’ concern for him/her, he/she is said to be in ‘love’.  Romantic love does not necessarily imply sexual relationship.

It may be a state of infatuation or obsession that captures a person with an expectation of being reciprocated with a desire. But romantic love is different from platonic love

Can Love Be Romantically Platonic?

Philosophically, platonic love uplifts the mind and soul to cultivate peace and integrate spiritual knowledge. On the other hand, romantic love and simple relationship being an aliquot of platonic love, inspires a person to sacrifice for his/her mate or someone close to his/her heart and soul.

Although the platonic love being similar to that of romantic love creates a powerful attachment between two persons or among many persons, yet being enriched with spiritual contents, it does not require any physical attachment.

But romantic love invites affectionate relation to get emotionally surcharged with physical perception of personal attachment. There are many instances in the history that say about romantic love affairs, but hardly one of them turned out to be purely platonic.

Platonic Love — History Of The Past

For a short duration, Platonic love had been a subject of social fashions at the English royal court, particularly in the society around Queen Henrietta Maria, the wife of King Charles I. Platonic love was the subject of the formal parties of guests wearing costumes and masks in the Caroline era—though this mode of love shortly declined under the continual and persistent demands for change perceived from political and literary society.

Justifying The Chemistry of Platonic Love

Despite of the abstractness attributable to Platonic Love, it would be absurd to think that love cannot exist between a male and a female having no physical relationship. It simply depends on the mentality of the persons concerned and chemistry of their relation.

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But the question is how these love relations take place? Taking it into consideration that we just cannot cast aside the two opposed parts in the form of platonic and romantic love, it becomes difficult for most of us to bring out the concept of love within the periphery of our understanding.

So, to make it comprehensive, I incline to suggest an exclusively new way to apprehend of love that follows two interconnected concepts which, for the sake of simplicity, maybe termed as Elementary Love and Profound Love.

Let us consider that Elementary Love reflects a relationship that reflects basic element of a person tending to accept another person and take interest in his or her life without exhibiting any self-interest. This kind of love spontaneously flows from one heart to another heart.

It portrays the character or the qualities of a person showing sincerity and a temperament to part with the delights and grief of another irrespective of any direct personal benefit convoluted to such sharing. This doesn’t give a logical consequence that Elementary Love is altruistic or selfless.

Actually, Elementary Love accredits what is genuinely in our nature as we, as social creatures, take part in the positive and negative events that take place in the lives of others in the fashion similar to the way through which others participate in our own life. And for all these one has to be a Columbus prepared to take a voyage to discover a companion by heart.

Should Profound Love Be Called As Platonic Love?

Elementary Love is different from Platonic Love as it does not attain the state of cherishing abstract ideals, nor does it dismiss the oodles of defects and failings that are just part and parcel of us as our existing desires to attain greatness.

A number of platonic lovers would articulate that such deficiencies take us away from the perfect accumulation of our knowledge about love, but to the elementary lovers, this specialness of life are fundamental to our general inquisitiveness and tendency to acknowledge such feelings of love as unparalleled individuals having specific functions.

While passing through the session of elementary love, we, as true lovers, tend to shift our level of inquisitiveness to a higher degree of imagination that gradually make us calmer and more contemplative about love and its deeper contents.

At this stage our love becomes more composed enabling us to enjoy the company of our beloved persons without sensual pleasure. This is how Elementary Love is turned into Profound Love being much closer to Platonic Love.

Love Tends To Be Platonic In True Relationships

The love of a person shows us the way how we should we show our love for another. As we move through the way loving one another, we lead off to give up physical desire for those we love, but we do not discontinue loving them any less profoundly.

As a matter of fact, our love cumulatively intensifies for them and eventually it breaks free from the confinement of physical desire.

I don’t feel unchallenged to say that a romantic relationship can be directly interdicted by Platonic Love, but the word ‘love’ is an expression confirming purity of a soul and such expression is not devoid of the beauty derived from true relationship.

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