Love

Love is a difficult emotion for a Social 3. Their experience with love is marked by constant fluctuations, where they seem to “cool down” and “heat up” regularly. When they perceive love, it triggers confusion and distrust, making them question, “Is this really love?” One of the questions that can throw a Social 3 off the most is, “How do you know you love someone?”

In the Social 3’s childhood, love was confused with recognition. “If I’m recognized, I’m valuable. And if I’m valuable, they love me,” as Yolanda puts it. “If they don’t show me recognition, I’m not valid. And if I’m not valid, they don’t love me.” This early lack of affection has led them to seek love outside of traditional emotional references. Yolanda adds:

“When I see a couple kissing in the street, I feel excited, thinking that’s love. But I immediately invalidate the scene, assuming that it won’t be the same when they’re alone. I’m unsure if the kiss is just for show or if it’s a genuine expression of their feelings. Deep down, my interpretation is driven by my distrust, as there’s a disconnect between what I’m supposed to feel and what I genuinely feel.”

For the Social 3, love revolves around the idea of feeling seen, loved, wanted, and desired – being the center of their partner’s world, even if their partner is not the center of theirs. In a romantic relationship, they need to be the sole focus of the other’s attention. And even if it’s not the case the other way around, they pretend it is and make their significant other believe it.

With their primary attention focused on the social sphere, their partner doesn’t hold as much significance. They tune their radar to seek recognition and love from many people. In love, they encounter a sense of emptiness connected to the act of surrender, and the Social 3, due to their inherent distrust, finds it difficult to surrender. So, they market affection, appearing as if they’re trustworthy, generous, kind, and accommodating – all to make their partner love them. However, they never truly connect with their real feelings for that person.

Once they’ve successfully charmed them, an alarm goes off: “Be cautious, for you will be abandoned when you least expect it!” Their deep-seated fear of abandonment, stemming from a painful and unhealed wound, is unconsciously activated when they enter into an intimate relationship. They feel vulnerable, and this fear surfaces: “If I don’t protect myself from love, I’ll get hurt.”

Adding to this, their irrational belief that “the other person will be disappointed when they discover who I truly am” accentuates the magnitude of the threat. In the face of love, the Social 3 plunges into emotional confusion, which they try to hide. Seduction allows them to dangle a carrot in front of their target, inciting desire. However, if they provide sex, their partner’s desire dwindles. Farewell to the longing gaze through which the Social 3 feels legitimized and valued:

“For many years of my life, making love felt like a chore, merely a means to please, whether it was my partner or someone else, as long as I received comments like ‘You’re so good at this’ or ‘You make me feel amazing.’ This satisfied my craving for physical contact and sensations. Making the other person experience pleasure was the source of my own pleasure, and it felt like an emotional bond, all without truly connecting with my own body or desires.” (Yolanda)

“In falling in love, I’ve been looking for that ‘good vibe’ through experimenting and having fun. I used to seduce using various tactics, not limited to the sexual aspect. It’s only in the latter part of my life that I’ve truly embraced my sexuality; previously, it was more of an instrumental thing, a means to an end. Now, I can open up, bursting with energy, and the act of making love naturally flows from within when I connect with someone else.” (Eustaquio)

Social 3s don’t typically engage in emotionally intense relationships characterized by dramatic ups and downs. On the contrary, since personal connection serves as the gateway to their emotional world, they often come across as cold. In disputes with their partner, they appear distant, displaying sharp verbal dominance.

For the Social 3, love is closely linked to trust, their compulsive need to be liked, the irrational belief that they must adapt to please everyone, and their interpretation of approval as a genuine sign of affection. Their “experience” of love thus remains a superficial sensation. Yolanda provides a powerful testament to this:

“When I’m with my partner, I need him to verbally express how much he loves me. He hugs me, kisses me, but that’s not enough for me; I don’t understand it. I ask him to put his love into words, and he says, ‘Enough.’ Then he hugs me tightly again for a long time. I freeze, not knowing what to do. I wonder, ‘How long will this hug last? What am I supposed to do?’ I might have had only three occasions when I briefly felt erotic love. Just a few fleeting seconds. Generally, I can’t distinguish my love from the love of the other person, from its utility, from the image, and from many other things.”

In authentic love, the kind that doesn’t seduce but genuinely gives, one can reveal their true self with openness and vulnerability. Such authenticity sparks a more profound and genuine bond. If, on the other hand, interpersonal relationships are built upon a facade (in this case, a social one), that very barrier makes real connection and, consequently, true love impossible.

In the case of Social 3 individuals, there is often a strong identification with a parent of the opposite sex and a sense of competition with a parent of the same sex. There’s also the sense of lacking instinctual resources (sexual, among others) in their approach to relationships. They tend to have low self-esteem about their physical appearance; the body isn’t perfect enough to express themselves freely and authentically. Despite that, they may employ techniques to present their bodies as more attractive than they perceive them to be, as Ana explains:

“I guess this has to do with my second subtype, the sexual one. I tend to present myself as more interesting, erotic, and perfect than I actually am. Being natural makes me

self-conscious. I’m afraid to transition from appearances to the real thing. I think I manage to project a certain ideal that isn’t truly me. And it’s hard to maintain that facade, although, at this point, it has become an automatic response.”

Social 3s often idealize love, for which they don’t have a healthy reference. They may not have felt genuinely loved early in life, becoming very lost and robotic in its presence. “Yes, I think of perfect love…” Francesco articulates, “The reality is that I’ve found a love that is built day by day, a love that requires effort. I believe there’s no such thing as perfect love, but the effort to love.”

The only way for them to access an authentic emotional space is to break free from dependence and identification with the needs of others. The Social 3 struggles to embrace love understood as a free energy that doesn’t require proof.

In some cases, their mother was overly touchy and invasive, giving the impression of using the child, who felt instrumentalized and disrespected. More commonly, they had a critical or openly hostile mother who was always correcting them. Love, in such cases, can be confused with being too soft. This is how Yolanda describes her experience:

“I falsely equate tenderness with weakness. I used to be incapable of feeling tenderness; I think my mother’s lack of affection clouded my ability to perceive it. When I recognize it in others and allow myself to experience it, I lose control, I lose my footing. It’s as if I’m playing a role; I have doubts about embracing being tender. It’s as though behind that, there lurks a fear of real contact, a need for a hug. The need for tenderness is hidden; it remains in the shadows. When I feel tender, I feel vulnerable. It’s as if I lose my strength, and I’m going to be trampled on. I connect with an emotion for which I lack the appropriate codes.”

Naranjo’s classification of love into erotic, compassionate, and admiring can be summarized in the Social 3 as follows:

Erotic love in this subtype is utilized as a means to seek validation. It is not experienced as a free expression of instinct and sexuality but rather as a means of being reaffirmed. Disconnected from sensuality and sexual pleasure, erotic love serves the purpose of maintaining a false image. They exchange erotic love for compassionate love (from a partner) or admiring love (social acceptance).

The Social 3 strives to be admired as much as they find it difficult to admire others. Whenever someone holds value in their eyes, it triggers their low self-esteem, leading to envy and feelings of inferiority that manifest in a contemptuous attitude. The lack of maternal tenderness, and parents with empathy for their emotional world

during childhood, results in compassionate love remaining a feeling that is perpetually longed for but distrusted in the Social 3.