Many lovers declare their love to each other easily. They say these words, “I love you,” often without thinking about their meaning. They just feel a pleasant warmth inside their belly, their heart beats faster at the sight of the object of “love”, they feel dizzy and attracted... they want to see this person more and more often, to be closer to him. Suffering during moments of quarrels, unwillingness to be separated even for a minute. Having experienced such feelings, a person believes that he knows how to love. In Erich Fromm’s book “The Art of Loving,” it is very clearly described what true love is. Based on his works, I would like to share my own thoughts about this topic that is important to many. In modern society, it is common to choose your life partner independently. Most often, this choice occurs under the influence of a whole range of feelings commonly called “love.” For example, sympathy, passion, love, admiration, adoration and many other emotions. This also includes loneliness, from which you want to escape by “tying yourself in marriage” to a completely unsuitable person. Today this is the most typical situation, leading to divorces and, as a consequence, single-parent families in which children are raised. "Why did it happen so? After all, we had love, we had real feelings. We were sure that we would meet old age together...” Many young people ask these questions when signing divorce papers. Divorce statistics have reached terrifying proportions over several decades. Lonely women and men, disillusioned with “love.” Children are raised without fathers or with a stepfather, with whom it is not always possible to build warm, family relationships. Single mothers forced to work hard to provide their children with a decent life. In order to answer these pressing questions, Erich Fromm, in his book “The Art of Loving,” suggests looking back into the past. A century ago, everything was different. The traditions of that time allowed parents, wise with rich life experience, to choose a spouse for their children. And they, in turn, grow up and are brought up with the understanding that one day, by the will of their parents, they will connect their lives with a stranger whom they will have to love. And there will be no turning back, since divorce is prohibited. A modern person living in a developed country is horrified by the very idea that someone else could be authorized to choose his spouse. And in those days, this was a centuries-old tradition. And they were good families. Of course, there are exceptions everywhere. And such traditions can also be called extremes. But, in most cases, the spouses were happy together and... loved each other. How did they do it? Take and fall in love with a person you didn’t know, didn’t communicate with, didn’t have any feelings for him. "Love is an art." So said Erich Fromm. This is not passion, not sexual energy directed at a specific object, this is not falling in love. When choosing a partner, succumbing to these deceptive emotions, most couples get divorced after the first years of marriage. Because strong feelings subside over time and two completely... unsuitable people remain. If we rely on the term “art,” it prompts some reflection. Any art must be mastered, and love is no exception. To learn to love, it is not enough to experience attraction, no matter how strong it may be. No matter how hard your heart beats, no matter how much you clench in your stomach, no matter how unbearable suffering separation causes, this is not love. These tossing and turning can be called falling in love, which is an excellent soil for the formation of real feelings, manifested primarily in care. Not jealousy, but in a zealous attitude towards the object of your love. But this is not enough. A person who believes that he sincerely loves his partner, but at the same time treats himself with disdain, cannot love. He just doesn't know how. Loving yourself is the beginning of understanding this great art. Moreover, this has nothing to do with selfishness,.