Eros is free love, a realization of a higher desire.
How do we know what we should desire? If you fulfill a desire and yet afterward it leaves you feeling empty or ashamed, then you have not fulfilled Eros. Eros can only be one that makes you happy and that makes happier all those with whom you are doing the fulfilling.
Then there was a double standard that many feminists and the rest of us often fall into as well. According to Nin, she states that women should focus on reeducating men about the true ways of Eros because women are the only gender still fully in touch with true Eros. This leads us to often apply double standards and accuse or put the blame on the male partner when a relationship fails.
An analysis of Oedipus shows his path towards Eros as he persisted in his search for the truth out of love for his people, even after being warned by others. Likewise, those who loved Oedipus tried to derail him from his efforts even if it meant putting themselves in harm's way.
Of Sexual desire conflicting with the achievement of Eros, Cephalus argues that we control and channel our passions in ways that lead to the loving pursuit of those that matter more- how to become a more excellent human being and how to make our world a more loving one. Plato supports that we first must indulge our appetites neither too much or too little, just enough to lay them to sleep and prevent them and thier enjoymenst and pains from interferring with the higher principle.
Heavenly Eros is then achieved through searching within your beloved for such manisfestations of beauty when we learn that the beauty of our partner's soul is more valuable than the beauty of thier bodies.
Socrates distinguishes between the 3 kinds of lovers: the "evil lover" who is out to serve him/herself and makes him/herself agreeable in order to enslave and deceive another and loves only as wolves love lambs, the "non-lover" whose excessive prudence does not stir any emotional response and attachment from his/her partner and the "noble lover who does not seek tat which is best for him/herself but is concerned only for his/her beloved.
The best lovers are creative and make their partner feel more free than when they were before they entered into them. There is also total acceptance for each other as they act as each other's non-judgmental mirror. They lovingly and gently reveal aspects of ourselves that may be difficult to acknowledge, showing only as much as we can take in at any given time. The best lovers are inspired to make beauty out of what at present is its converse.
Gasset states that we can find in love the most decisive symptom of what a person is.
If a person is not sensitive, how can his love be sentient? If he is not profound, how can his love be deep? As one is, so is his love.
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