True Love, Lust, Or Friendship?

So, you feel that swelling in your heart. The kind that makes you want to write poetry and beautiful music. You have the crazy indescribable urge to broadcast to the world that you're in love and make frequent references to friends and colleagues about the object of your affection. You are on a delicious, delirious high and feel that nothing can bring you down now that you have finally found 'The One'.

But is it genuine true love that you have stumbled across or an insidious impostor? One that leaves a trail of broken hearts and broken promises everywhere. History is replete with stories of unconditional love that reached almost to the heights of heaven itself. Couples who were bonded so closely that nothing could come between them. Unfortunately for every one of those tales there are literally thousands more which end in sorrow and despair.

Most of the time the pain that results from a relationship ending has more to do with our own unrealised fantasies and lost hope than it has to do with our choice of mate. There are notable exceptions to this of course.
The difficulty lies in trying to maintain a realistic view of our partner and the relationship while our hormones and their rush of 'love endorphins' undermines our every turn. The phrase "Love is Blind" was coined for a reason.