Being swept off your feet or “head over heels” for someone new — despite not knowing them very well — is often referred to as infatuation. Infatuation is also a deep sense of connection, mainly based on the idealization of someone else. It can feel intense, passionate, and beyond reason.
In your brain the dopamine center is rewarded when you see or think about your love interest. Then your brain gets flooded with dopamine. This pleasure response feels so good that it's easy to mistake infatuation with a real connection.
An infatuation lasts anywhere between six months to three years. It could turn into a more serious relationship if it lasts beyond that. But people do realize even after a year that they are infatuated and it is not love. It can last longer if it's a long-distance relationship.
Sternberg's theory of love, infatuation is rooted in passion; you're wildly attracted to the person, you're excited to see them, the sex is great, etc. Meanwhile, romantic love is rooted in both passion and intimacy; you have all the ingredients of infatuation, coupled with friendship, trust, support, etc.
Signs of infatuation
Want to spend all your time with them. Fall for them super quickly. Find that they occupy your thoughts constantly. Neglect other friendships and family relationships to spend time with them.
Infatuation is falling in love with or becoming extremely interested in someone or something for a short time. If you have an infatuation with a particular singer, you probably listen to her on repeat all day long, at least this week. If something infatuates you, it has caused you to become foolish.
The first stage: Infatuation
This is the phase when everything is perfect when you are happy and feel complete. When you first fall in love with someone, you experience something higher than you ever thought you could. Contrary to what you might think, when you first fall in love, you fall in love with yourself.
Authentic love takes that one step further to attachment; wanting to stay together. Infatuation is about idealizing romantic love. Real love accepts the good, bad, and ugly. Infatuation is often superficial and obsessive.
The five stages of a relationship are the Merge, Doubt and Denial, Disillusionment, the Decision, and Wholehearted Love. Every single relationship moves through these five stages—though not only once.
You can assume a man is deeply in love with a woman once his initial attraction turns into attachment. Physical attraction, sexual compatibility, empathy, and emotional connection are key to making a man fall in love with a woman.
The extreme highs and lows of an infatuation can leave you feeling insecure and vulnerable. You might find yourself preoccupied with your partner's experience of the relationship and opinion of you without pausing to check-in with your own feelings of comfort, safety, and self-worth.
Sometimes the lines between whether you like someone for who they are (attraction) or if you are only physically drawn to them (infatuation). There's nothing wrong with a casual relationship that is primarily physical as long as you both are on the same terms.
For example, you can watch his body language. He's likely to turn his body towards you when in conversation and to make eye contact with you. He may pay attention to you more than others that are around. He's also likely to try spending time with you more than with others when he's falling in love.
The Oxford English Dictionary as, “an idea or thought that continually preoccupies or intrudes on a person's mind” defines obsession. Unlike infatuation in which the infatuated person strives to be more like someone, an obsessed person spends all their time thinking about this one person.
Signs of infatuation:
You feel like this person is a "perfect match" for you. You feel vaguely "obsessed" with this person. You're very physically attracted to this person, and it can sometimes distract you from exploring other facets of this person. You don't know the person that well on an actual personal level.
A guy who has strong feelings for you will want to know everything about you and will make a genuine effort to get to know you better. He'll also use body language that makes him appear more approachable, like eye contact and having an open, relaxed posture.
A man in love tends to lean his shoulders towards his love interest. It is one of the indications of adoration. If he leans his shoulders towards you when he's close to you, he's romantic and cares about what you have to say. He will lean in and create a space that incorporates you two.
When used with a preposition infatuated is typically followed by with.
Love and infatuation are both accompanied by intense feelings, attraction, and emotions. However, there are many differences between the two, including love is more than physical, and infatuation is only physical. Love is deep, and infatuation is shallow. Love is secure, and infatuation is insecure.
Balu Mahendra : This is called infatuation. According to Freud psychology, Infatuation is only an attraction between male and female and is a state of being completely carried away by unreasoned passion, foolishly extravagant feeling and unappreciated often completely unwarranted emotion.
Researchers have scanned the brains of people who are madly in love and found a heavy surge of dopamine, a neurotransmitter in the brain's reward system that helps people feel pleasure. Dopamine, along with other chemicals, gives us that energy, focus, and obsession we feel when we're wild about someone.