Is it Love?

It’s a romantic dinner: Candlelight, flowers, and champagne. But is it love or lust in the air?  Figuring this out may be easier than you think. The clues are on your partner’s face.

A recent study conducted by eHarmony Labs researcher Dr. Gian Gonzaga, published in the journal Emotion, explored the facial expressions and behaviors that related to feeling love and desire among romantic partners. In the study, 63 romantic couples were videotaped while talking about their first date and then reported how much love and desire they felt during the conversation. When couples felt love they leaned towards each other, gestured with their hands, nodded their heads, and smiled at each other. But when it was desire, partners stuck out their tongues as well as licked, bit, sucked, and touched their own lips.

But does what you feel in the heat of the moment mean anything for the relationship? It turns out that it does. In the study, feelings of love related to being more satisfied with the relationship and talking about marriage. In contrast, feelings of desire related to having sex and being more satisfied with sex in the relationship.

“Love and desire relate to different aspects of our romantic relationships”, said Dr. Gonzaga. “Love motivates long term commitment and signals that commitment to a partner. Desire is about something more primal, sex. Both things are important to making a romantic relationship work.”

So if you are unsure of what your partner is feeling, just look for the signals. If you see head nods and smiles your partner may thinking about how to propose. If you see lip licks and bites, your partner may be thinking about what is going to happen right after dinner.