Your heart’s going passionately wild. You can’t eat or sleep, and you crave every touch. It must be love, right?

Infatuation is not love. Sweaty palms, lust, jealously, breathtaking sex and the desire yearning in the pit of your stomach to be touched by your mate are all examples of infatuation, which can disillusion the heart for love.

Infatuation is great, but if you’re jaded and find yourself looking on campus for the next sex vixen in two months, then it was the typical infatuation fixation.

People who jump from relationship to relationship are “infatuation fanatics.” As soon as they find themselves getting close to their mates, their senses of passion and excitement can run dry.

Usually they believe that the person just plainly stopped doing it for them, but what they don’t realize is that it’s the need for something new, the arousal stimulation they get from dating or sleeping with someone new.

Infatuation is something I consider important, and I like starting my relationships based on just that. I love dating when I feel excited, foolish for wanting to call him 10 times a day, daydreaming in class of my lips touching his and feeling warm and tingly right before I see him.

But instant desire can fade with time. In a few months it can lead to plenty of girl-night only outings, no invites and pretty much telling him to forget my number because I’m ready for the next man to light my fire.

David Van Hill, a junior majoring in business said: “I become infatuated with women for looks and personality. I know I’m in love now, and not infatuated, because I can be myself. I trust her and we know each other inside and out.”

I believe it’s human nature that the inner sexual spark wants and needs to be wanted. Most enjoy the feelings that come with crushes: the feeling of desire for another with hopes that after months of dating, you will soon gain trust, respect and share intimate feelings that lead to the path of love.

Even though this might seem hard to believe, I feel men become more infatuated with women than women do with men. I’m not talking about the naked blonde pictured on the calendar on their wall. I’m talking about experiences of dating from me and women I know.

When men I date become pushy, ask too many questions, try to “get in good” with my friends and show up randomly at places I am, it can become annoying.

I usually work the two-week rule pretty good, and then I’m over it. I soon realize I’m only infatuated for the excitement, and they’re only infatuated for the fun. The hardest part of infatuation is the realization that it’s only that and not love.

It can become devastating for you or the other person and can create guilty feelings if your feelings aren’t mutual. Just remember, infatuation doesn’t always lead to love, and that’s why it doesn’t always last.

Shauvon Torres can be reached at [email protected]