Love+Broken+Down+by+Maria+Capetta

Love Broken Down Maria Capetta Mr. Barra Period 2 Lit Research Paper

====What is love? Probably one of the hardest questions every person must individually answer for themselves. Love and relationships are tricky because there are so many different types of love. Relay Heath states that “love is a powerful feeling. There are many kinds of love, such as loving your family, friends or a romantic partner. Real love is about caring.” Love is all about trust and commitment to a partner who makes you feel good about yourself. A serious relationship would allow both people to be true to themselves without asking them to change and is based off of respect (Relay Health). Lust is not the same as love because it is just a pulse or feeling while love is a commitment to really see the other person and recognize them for who they are, their values and respect their thoughts.==== ====In Vladimir Nabokov’s //Spring ////in ////Fialta, //he uses a married couple torn apart to convey that love is never clear cut, easy and is always painful. With love, “nothing is simple, yet nothing is simpler” and trying to define love cannot be done without having experiencing it for oneself from beginning to end (Gizzi). “Life makes love look hard” and makes us wonder “why we bother with love if it never lasts” because love is its own animal (Swift). “The nature of love remains elusive” and “actions simply support the mystery of love rather than unmask it” are some themes of Raymond Carver’s //What we talk about when we talk about Love.// The short story focuses on a group of friends trying to define love with no answer to this daunting question. Love “freely gives” to those who are open to the commitments and the ridicule that comes from love not being understood (Wilcox). Romantic relationships are affected by “family, peers, culture and attitudes” and can be hard when “people throw rocks at things that shine” (Fisher, Swift). ==== ==== Teenage love affairs stem from the need to establish intimacy and be accepted by any other individual. Adolescence is a period apart from one’s parents where an individual’s identity begins to form. Their identities may be shaped while being a part of a couple and forming their views together as they grow (Kaczmarek). According to research done by Terri Fisher, there are four stages of development in an adolescent relationship: initial infatuation, affirmative romantic relationship, intimate romantic relationship, and committed romantic relationship. Teens go through periods of crushes to commitment, learning about not only their own identities but their partner’s as well. Any kind of relationship will develop a person and leave an influence on their mind no matter how small the source or how short the time spent together. ==== ==== Friendships are a different kind of love but can have the same intensity as a romantic love. From childhood to adolescent years, people develop relationships to fill their intimacy needs. As the teen ages, intimacy becomes more important and support is expected from the friendship. According to Durell Johnson’s studies, females develop more intimate relationships and stress the importance of closeness and support. The younger the person, the closer they are to a same sex friend, and the older they are the closer they become to their cross sex friends. A cross sex friendship may become more intimate with age as romantic relationships start to form and real connections are made (Johnson). A friendship starts to form as a child but can blossom into so much more as age and experience brings people closer together. ==== ==== Loss can be one of the worst experiences in any person’s life, but the loss of love is one of the hardest experiences to go through without falling apart. Remember the first time you fell in love? It was amazing and innocent but sweet and probably hit you when you were least expected it. Love is something people spend their whole lives searching for and when they lose it, it can take more than a lifetime to get over. The closeness in a relationship actually develops early on and can make the loss even harder. And because an adolescent’s identity may have formed around the other person, the loss of the relationship is like losing a part of one’s own self. The fantasy that gets created around the relationship is shattered and when teens morn for an ended relationship, usually they are morning not for the end of the relationship now, but the end of what could have been in the future (Kaczmarek). Falling out of love can happen abruptly and feel like the pain will last forever, but there will always be another love waiting out there to be found. ====

Carver, Raymond. "What We Talk about When We Talk about Love." //SparkNotes//. SparkNotes, n.d. Web. 10 June 2014.
====Developed by, RelayHealth. "Relationships: Teen Version." //CRS - Pediatric Advisor// (2013): 1. //Health Source - Consumer Edition//. Web. 11 June 2014 ====

Gizzi, Peter. "Lines Depicting Simple Happiness." //Poetry Foundation//. Poetry Foundation, 2007. Web. 10 June 2014.
====<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Johnson, H. Durell. "Gender, Grade, And Relationship Differences In Emotional Closeness Within Adolescent Friendships." //Adolescence// 39.154 (2004): 243-255. //Health Source - Consumer Edition//. Web. 11 June 2014. ==== ====<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Kaczmarek, M.G., and B.A. Backlund. "Disenfranchised Grief: The Loss Of An Adolescent Romantic Relationship." //Adolescence// 26.102 (1991): 253. //Academic Search Premier//. Web. 11 June 2014. ====