Many researchers who are interested in love have studied the six love styles that Canadian sociologist John Alan Lee (1933–2013) identified in the 1970s (Lee, 1973, 1976). His theories of love styles and the development of methods to investigate them made significant and original contributions to the field (Karandashev, 2022).

John Lee theoretically conceptualized six love styles and empirically identified them. Over the years of love research and publication, the original author’s descriptions of the six love styles he proposed have been condensed and reduced to some shortcuts. These truncated attributes have somewhat distorted Lee’s original meanings. Here are a few excerpts from my books where I talk about the Ludus love style in more depth.

Lee’s Theoretical Description of the Ludus Love Style

“Individuals with the Ludus love style are playful and game-loving in their expressions and behaviors. They are pluralistic and permissive in their choices and actions. They often engage in multiple and relatively short-lived relationships. They tend to control their involvement in a relationship in an attempt to avoid the feeling of jealousy.”

(Excerpt from Karandashev, 2022, p. 78).

Lee’s Empirically Identified Characteristics of the Ludus Love Style

In-depth interviews with 120 participants using the “love story card sort” method produced approximately 100,000 data points. The basic form of factor analysis identified 32 factors that distinguished the six clearly identifiable love styles based on their most salient characteristics. The features of the Ludus love style, which Lee identified based on this analysis, are as follows:

“Participants with Ludus style recall their childhood as average. They consider their present life satisfactory, yet do not often feel enthusiastic about it. They like the broader range of physical types in potential partners, are not very selective, and can easily change their preferences. They do not fall in love in the typical sense. They continue the regular activities as usual and wish the love relationships would adapt to their existing schedule of life. They are not willing to commit themselves and settle down, thoroughly avoiding future commitment to the partner and relationship. They do not like to plan far ahead for any events.

The lovers of the Ludus style make an effort to prevent too much involvement and intimacy in relationships by avoiding seeing the beloved too often and preventing over-involvement on either side. They may often discuss the problems of involvement with a partner to minimize the feelings of involvement.

A lover of the Ludus style can play openly, honestly telling the truth to the partner, or can deceive and lead the partner on. The lover, who plays a fair love game, tends to go on and enjoy the ludus style of relationship with the current and next partner. The cheating lover may accumulate the feeling of guilt that sooner or later spoils the joy of the game.

The lovers of the Ludus style enjoy sexual intimacies as pleasant feelings, entertaining plays, and fun games rather than as genuine, passionate connections. Generally, ludic lovers are not prone to experiencing jealousy or feeling rivalry. They expect that the partner also does not feel and does not show jealousy.

When the relationship is not enjoyable anymore, the lovers of the Ludus style think they have a reason to end it. They can easily find an alternative partner. To avoid being bored, they like to have two or three partners for different activities and on different nights of the week. The partners are usually not ignorant of each other’s existence. This knowledge prevents them from becoming overly engaged.”

(Excerpt from Karandashev, 2022, p. 81).

The Ludus Love Style is a Love Type

As this description shows, the Ludus love style represents a distinct cluster of personal beliefs, attitudes, behaviors, and individual identity exhibited by men and women in romantic relationships. They characterize the attitudes, experiences, expressions, behaviors, and interactions of lovers. These distinct characteristics can be distinguished empirically. They are connected in a typical manner that defines the typological structure of Ludus (Karandashev, 2022).

So, the Ludus love style is a type of love rather than a variable, how it is measured with the Love Attitude Scale (Hendrick & Henrick, 1986, 1998).