Love lifts us up! Love is a many splendoured thing! All you need is love! As so many movies and saccharine pop songs remind us, the world pretty much revolves around love and its offspring (romance, fantasy and “chick flicks”). But can you really be certain it’s love you’re in? At long last, we present the definitive analysis - the five stages of love.

We begin with that most delightful of early teenage memories - Puppy Love. This stage can easily be identified by the sweethearts’ high-pitched giggles and uncontrollable desire to note pass notes to each other in math class. This stage is also notable for the inability of the afflicted to recognize the transitory nature of their feelings. Innocent bystanders must try to nod convincingly when faced with statements such as: “So-and-so and I will never break up. I mean, I know I’m only 14 but we’re like, forever.”

Once Puppy Love has splattered like so much Alpo on the kitchen floor, it’s time to move into a more adult frame of mind. That flutter in your stomach. The racing of your heart. The hunger to follow your crush into the supermarket so you can figure out what brand of baking soda they buy so you can buy it too and then have something to ask them about at the water cooler…(breathe)… this is Infatuation. You can’t sleep, you can’t eat and your work hasn’t been this neglected since you figured out how to download video games off the internet. If your crush doesn’t share your feelings, you face the awesome pain of rejection. But the truly fortunate will have their affection returned and progress to the next stage…

Passion.

Passion is more than mere love. It is L’amour. It’s fine wine and candlelight and long walks on an empty beach. Passion is when fate lights a fire beneath two people and steps back to watch the show. This is the time when many couples find their Passion so intense, after a few months they burn themselves out and the only release is to key nasty sentiments into their former paramour’s Lexus. A lucky few however capture the essence of their Passion, harness it and move on to a new plateau.

Welcome to Friendship, one of love’s most blessed stages. Friendship is what carries two people through the valleys that surround the peaks of passion. Friendship praises the fluorescent pink sweater with bright blue daisies, because it’s a gift that was bought from the heart. And Friendship will look directly at that strange pimple with the hair growing out of it and still believe you are the most attractive person on the planet.

With the bonds of friendship as the foundation, you can now build the perfect dream home. Move on in to the last stage of love - Commitment. Commitment understands that it’s ok to spend time apart, because you trust each other enough to be home for dinner. Commitment will help you put in ear drops, de-worm the dog and still be waiting with a kiss when you get home from work. Commitment is patient and kind and despite life’s challenges, will remain standing by your side until death do you part.

It takes a lot of work to run the marathon of love and many couples decide to call it quits and just take the subway. If however you finish the race, the grand prize is a lifetime of happiness.

Even if you do have to wear that hideous sweater.