Love vs. Infatuation – 50 Tell-Tale Signs

Probably one of the hardest questions to answer of all time is, ‘What is love?’ (And no, it’s not ‘baby don’t hurt me.’) This day and age, our life is consumed by trying to find love through online dating apps. It has become even more confusing to determine what love is and differentiate it from infatuation. Are we just lusting after this person or do we really love them? Here are 50 tell-tale signs whether you are in love or just infatuated by those who have lived through it.

1. “I don’t think love should make you feel uneasy. When you feel sick, I don’t think that’s love – that’s infatuation.” -­­­­– Alexa Chung
2. “When you develop an infatuation for someone you always find a reason to believe that this is exactly the person for you. It doesn’t need to be a good reason. Taking photographs of the night sky, for example. Now, in the long run, that’s just the kind of dumb, irritating habit that would cause you to split up. But in the haze of infatuation, it’s just what you’ve been searching for all these years.” ― Alex Garland, The Beach
3. “Infatuation is not quite the same thing as love; it’s more like love’s shady second cousin who’s always borrowing money and can’t hold down a job.” ― Elizabeth Gilbert, Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage
4. “I was doing that thing the infatuated do, stitching destiny onto the person we want stitched to us.” ― Rachel Kushner, The Flamethrowers
5. “Infatuation is the language of a beautiful eye upon a sensitive heart.” ― Joseph R. Bartlett
6. “A lot of the time when people get married in the infatuation, it will go down. That is inevitable. The infatuation stage will not last forever.” ―Tamera Mowry
7. An infatuated man is not only foolish, but wild. — George Crabbe
8. The evil of infatuation is illustrated by the drunkard. — John Bartholomew Gough
9. Infatuation’s just another word for not seeing clearly. When you start to love a person- that’s when they become real. — Jodi Picoult
10. No one can understand love who has not experienced infatuation. And no one can understand infatuation, no matter how many times he has experienced it. —- Mignon McLaughlin
11. Infatuation is when you think that he’s as sexy as Robert Redford, as smart as Henry Kissinger, as noble as Ralph Nader, as funny as Woody Allen, and as athletic as Jimmy Conners. Love is when you realize that he’s as sexy as Woody Allen, as smart as Jimmy Conners, as funny as Ralph Nader, as athletic as Henry Kissinger, and nothing like Robert Redford–but you’ll take him anyway. —Judith Viorst
12. “Infatuation means, ‘A love that it is inconvenient to go on with.’” —Celia Fremlin
13. “Infatuation was a good thing. It gave spice to life, and added to its enjoyment… But it was different from love. Love was worth everything, and couldn’t be exchanged for anything.” —Paulo Coelho
14. Love sees clearly, and seeing, loves on. But infatuation is blind; when it gains sight, it dies. —Mary Roberts Rinehart
15. “Infatuation is measured in pleasure. Love is measured in pain. Behold the value of pain!” —Anthony Marais
16. “Infatuation cannot be sustained indefinitely, my friend. Love that embraces the entire person is a monumental gift that takes time to grow.” —Joan Bauer
17. “A conditional love is nothing but an infatuation, sexuality. Unconditional is the only way love can be. Wherever a condition comes in, love disappears. It cannot live in bondage, and a condition gives it an imprisonment. Love can only live like the vast sky. Love knows no boundaries.” —Rajneesh
18. “You never knew this, but I was in love. Okay, infatuated, but it felt like love at the time.” —Teresa Lo
19. “You can’t truly love someone if you also love yourself, just as you can’t love someone if you are not honest with them and they with you – otherwise it’s just infatuation and desire.” — Benjamin Stone
20. “The majority of romantic comedy movies have nothing to do with love, but everything to do with infatuation.” — Matt Smith
21. “I think it’s important to find someone that you really like as well as love. When the infatuation runs out, the first phase of the relationship changes. You really have to be able to say ‘I like to hang out with you. Let’s keep hanging out.’” —Martina McBride
22. “Love is something that is very personal to each individual based on where they are in their lives. It fluctuates and changes over time. I think there is a massive differentiation between infatuation and love, but people tend to confuse the two.” —Paul Wesley
23. “I think you can love someone and be infatuated with them, too. But infatuation is immediate, while the sort of love in the West is something you build with someone. It’s a trust.” — Simon Van Booy
24. “Time was too much a part of love, for even in fairy tales the proof of love was not its first moment, but its latest ones – that people lived happily ever after. Love at first sight was nothing but infatuation until proved by time.” — Margaret Mahy
25. “My love affair with (him) had a wonderful element of romance to it, which I will always cherish. But it was not an infatuation, and here’s how I can tell: because I did not demand that he become my Great Emancipator or my Source of All Life, nor did I immediately vanish into that man’s chest cavity like a twisted, unrecognizable, parasitical homunculus. During our long period of courtship, I remained intact within my own personality, and I allowed myself to meet (him) for who he was.” — Elizabeth Gilbert
26. “…infatuation’s final destination—the complete and merciless devaluation of self.” — Elizabeth Gilbert
27. “Real love takes time to build. What you feel is just infatuation. But it doesn’t feel temporary. It never does at its onset. It’s only in hindsight that we realize the difference between infatuation and love.” —Sherrilyn Kenyon
28. “Love, being in love, isn’t a constant thing. It doesn’t always flow at the same strength. It’s not always like a river in flood. It’s more like the sea. It has tides, it ebbs and flows. The thing is, when love is real, whether it’s ebbing or flowing, it’s always there, it never goes away. And that’s the only proof you can have that it is real, and not just a crush or an infatuation or a passing fancy.” — Aidan Chambers
29. “Love- the infatuation kind- ‘he’s so handsome, she’s so beautiful’- that can shrivel. As soon as something goes wrong, that kind of love can fly out the window.” —Mitch Albom
30. “I think infatuation is like a garden. If tended and cared for, it grows into love. If neglected or abused it dies. The only way to have eternal love is to never let your heart forget what it’s like to live without it.” — Sherrilyn Kenyon
31. “Love without trust is nothing more than infatuation.” —- Ellen Hopkins
32. “Love is reliable. infatuation is temporary.” — Ann Hood
33. “Addiction is the hallmark of every infatuation-based love story.” — Elizabeth Gilbert
34. “Real, sane, mature love—the kind that pays the mortgage year after year and picks up the kids after school—is not based on infatuation but on affection and respect.” — Elizabeth Gilbert
35. “Real, sane, mature love—the kind that pays the mortgage year after year and picks up the kids after school—is not based on infatuation but on affection and respect.” — Elizabeth Gilbert
36. “Purely sensual love is never true and lasting, for which reason first love is, as a rule, but a passing infatuation, a fleeting passion.” —Richard von Krafft-Ebing
37. “The essence of love begins when infatuation ends.” ― Anonymous
38. “It’s so easy to be infatuated with someone but hard to find that someone who will catch you.” ― Anonymous
39. “If and when infatuation passes on and you still have infatuation for the same person then you may have love.” — Lamine Pearlheart, Aether
40. “Love is the only emotion strong enough to sweep us off our feet, but remain unmoved when we are knocked to our knees. And if I am willing to embrace the former but flee from the latter, I’ve confused love with infatuation.” ― Craig D. Lounsbrough
41. “When one is attracted towards a woman; it is ‘asakti’ [infatuation]. But when the soul [relative self] gets engrossed into it; that is ‘attachment’ [raag].” ― Dada Bhagwan, Brahmacharya: Celibacy With Understanding
42. “Passion will warm you for days, infatuation will warm you for months, but love will set you on fire for a lifetime.” ― Matshona Dhliwayo
43. “Infatuation -You easily back off. Love -You silently care, no matter what!” ― Akansh Malik
44. “Falling in love is more than infatuation. It is the need to feel whole, to feel safe, to be healed, to join together with someone, heart and soul.” ― Michael R French, Why Men Fall Out of Love: What Every Woman Needs to Understand
45. “Infatuation, unlike love, is impossible to sustain…” ― Kaira Rouda, All The Difference
46. “We commonly confuse love with the strong emotions most often associated with it, such as joy, attachment, lust, infatuation, pleasure, pain, fear, and hope, to name a few. But, love is not a feeling; love itself is an action. There are countless emotions and beliefs that can cause us to love. Love is the willing giving of self to another living being. Love is giving the life, time, energy, and resources that we would normally give or use for our self to someone else. Love is an action that enhances the well-being of another living being.” ― C W Newman, Self: A Treatise on the Nature of Reality
47. “Love is a feeling that must be felt from the heart and seen through inner beauty. Only if this was known to the youth, many a marriages would have blossomed with age and cherished through decades. Just like a plant that needs the sun, water and more time to grow into a beautiful tree with lovely leaves and flowers, love needs time to be nurtured over time, built on a strong foundation of friendship, trust and honesty. When this foundation is built and combined with the feeling that tickles you from within, that is when love actually happens, the rest is all infatuation, attraction or even lust.” ― Jagdish Joghee, The Colour of Love: Trumpets and bugles, there was music all over
48. “Love is not blind. Infatuation is blind. Love is all-seeing and still accepting.” ― Anamika Mishra
49. “Attraction is often mistaken to be love. If you’re in a relationship doesn’t necessarily mean you’re in love. And what do you do when that ephemeral attraction is long gone? What people call break-ups are nothing more but the realization that you didn’t love them at the first place… Shouldn’t you have been more careful before making those empty promises?” ― Sanhita Baruah
50. “Indeed, infatuation thrives on image (while love thrives on knowledge).” ― Chana Levitan, I Only Want to Get Married Once: Dating Secrets for Getting It Right the First Time
51. I love him so much but something in me wants me to retain  a personal  injury Lawyer- like  Tulsa car wreck lawyer. He drives like a drunk. What of if? -Abby Brown