Love vs Lust

Diffen › Social Sciences › Psychology

Love is an intense feeling of affection and care towards another person. It is a profound and caring attraction. On the other hand, lust is a strong desire of a sexual nature.

Comparison chart

Love versus Lust comparison chart
[Image: Edit this comparison chart]	Love	Lust
Definition	An intense feeling of deep affection.	Any intense desire or craving for gratification; when contrasted with love, lust usually means sexual desire.
Symptoms	Faithfulness, loyalty, confidence. Willingness to make sacrifices for another. Working at settling differences. Able to compromise so that either both win or at least give the other person's opinion a chance.	Desire, passion, acquisitiveness, intense emotions.
Person to Person	Commitment to another. Genuine intentions. Think about other person's feelings before acting.	Enjoyment of a short-term, mutually pleasurable relationship.
Feels like	A deep affection, contentment, confidence. Partners communicate and negotiate appropriate expectations. Requires a lot of selflessness and polite assertiveness. You are loving your best friend.	Passion, joyousness, strong desire, intense and sometimes difficult feelings of need.
Result	Security, peace, a solid partnership which can provide the ideal atmosphere to raise confident, secure children.	Unsatisfied lust results in sexual frustration, increased religiosity and superstition, emotional rigidity. Lust satisfied in a mutually beneficial way results in pleasure, creativity, passion, zest for life.
Effect	Contentment, stability.	fire, drive, activeness.
Interdependency	Partnership. Can lead to codependency if not tempered with self-awareness and self-guidedness.	Often the first stage of love, and can lead to lasting friendships, romantic or otherwise. When not tempered with compassion and empathy, however, it can lead to emotionally damaging behavior.
Time Period	It will deepen with the passage of time.	Highly variable -- it may deepen or dissipate with the passage of time.
Commitment	This feeling may continue throughout one's life.	Temporary commitment that lasts only long enough to fulfill desire.
Bottom Line	Love is unconditional and the real deal.	Interested in only what can be done for self-pleasure; lust may develop into love, but it is lust until that time.

Video Explaining the Differences

In the following video, Dr. Terri Orbuch (The Love Doctor), a professor of sociology at Oakland University, discusses how to tell love from lust based on how you feel: