Have you ever been in love?

If your gut didn't do a flip or sink, I'd have to guess you haven't. But this is for those who felt the strong physical and emotional reaction to that intoxicating, dangerous four letter word.

I've fallen in love a few times in my life, I'll admit. What I've come to realize is that even though there are many forms of love, ultimately there are two main types. Immature love and mature love. It wasn't until I was in a committed, healthy relationship with someone I truly loved that I realized how toxic my past loves were. But that doesn't mean I wasn't in love, it was just an immature love.

Immature love is the kind of love that says "I need you," while mature love says "I want you." Immature love is usually built upon dependency. Not the good kind of dependency that every good relationship, no matter if its platonic or romantic, involves. No, I'm talking about attachment. I'm not going to lie, I've been there more times than I'd like to admit. Being attached is when you feel the relentless need to be around them all the time, and if you aren't... you go crazy. That was how my second love and I were. Both of us were guilty of a strong attachment to each other which ended up destroying us in the end. While in mature love, you still will want to spend all or most of your time with them, but you both understand that you don't have to be together 24/7 to feel close or know that you're the only person on their mind. And that's where trust comes into play.

Immature love is rooted in jealousy. Deep, malicious jealousy. It's normal to be a little jealous from time to time because that shows you care about them, but when it comes to the point of stalking or snooping through their phone, that's not healthy. Mature love is built on trust. If the phrase guys or girls night causes hot beads of sweat to race down your forehead, I'd probably reconsider the trust between you two. My first love couldn't stand it when I went out with my work friends, while later I found out that he was the one cheating on me (Side note: emotional cheating is still cheating no matter what people say). My second love was the same way, except he didn't cheat on me. But my third love trusted me wholeheartedly and so I trusted him as well and that was never an issue of ours.

And finally, one of the biggest differences between these two types of love is patience. Immature love doesn't have room for patience. This is one of the biggest problems in our current generation, in my opinion, because we millennial grew up in an "automatic" life rather than a "manual." We expect everything to be handed to us or be a click away. Our attention spans decease as rapidly as technology evolves faster and faster. That's one of the best and mature parts of my and first love and my relationship. We were friends for three years before we started dating and I liked him as long as I knew him, but I knew if I was patient, we'd end up together. And it was well worth the wait. Because what I've come to realize since is that relationships these days fade as fast as they spark.

Basically, no love is perfect. Every couple is going to have issues and that's okay. Heck, that's healthy. But if it's an understanding, intimate (not just sexy) and motivating kind of love, work hard to keep it. Mature love is the kind of love can turn into forever if you don't let it slip through your fingertips.