Love. How do you define it?

[PhilosophyMind]

Skybrarian

An EXCELLENT question! Just what is love?
Is it when you are only happy when another is happy?
Is it when the only thing you wish to do is be near that other person?
There's a girl I know. We used to be friends. But now when I think of talking to her I freak out. Is that love?

Well, what do you think? Do you think it's love or just infatuation?
Do you freak out because you're afraid of what she thinks about you?
Afraid you'll make a fool of yourself?

Liking someone makes us question ourselves, especially if we don't know how that person feels in relation to our feelings.  

[Necera]

Love... I believe I can define the feeling I understand as Love. It is a comfort and contentness that someone's presence gives you. The knowledge that they are alive somewhere, and that you will see them some time gives you great joy and eagerness. You think about them often, and the thoughts are fullfilling, grounding.
The ones you love are your home, your safety, your life. They almost define you, and their ideas are the only ones that truely affect yours.

Lust is another thing entirely. Sexual drive. That is biological, and unless you have issues, your lust will not define your love, or overpower it. Not even close. You can be lustful towards some of those you love, as well as those you don't. It is physical, hormonal, unavoidable.

Love, on the otherhand, is deep. Fulfilling.  

[Deaths Krow]

Love? There is no love, because in order to truley love a person, there must perfection in your conection with the person, but there is no perfection. I can say I love my girl friend, but in actuallity I only like her a lot. A person you love, is that person that is perfect for you in every way. But to be perfect, a person would have to be moral, invulnerable and immortal. Impossible. So love is simply a word used in refering to likeing someone enough that you want to spend the rest of your life with them, maybe not that extreme, but it gets to the point.  

[AbrAbraxas]

love is a word, it has been used for many things.
it can represent the feeling between two people. that feeling could be lust, security, friendship, community, infatuation, affinity, enjoyment or others that do not come to mind.
it could also mean the attitude or feeling that one has for or expresses in relation to one and/or all things.
it can be an affirmation of commitment.
it could be ananda (sanskrit), the joy of unity with the cosmos. akin to that it could be the feeling that arises when we know that what we do for or to others we do for or to ourselves and the reverse is the same coupled with the desire to be whole and complete, the full desire to live.
it could be compassion as Buddha says

or it could be something else.
i think it is one of the most misunderstood and misused words ever. ironically it has prevented many people from living happy lives yet it is supposed to symbolize the height of human experience.  

[MegaTherion777]

All7

Love? There is no love, because in order to truley love a person, there must perfection in your conection with the person, but there is no perfection. I can say I love my girl friend, but in actuallity I only like her a lot. A person you love, is that person that is perfect for you in every way. But to be perfect, a person would have to be moral, invulnerable and immortal. Impossible. So love is simply a word used in refering to likeing someone enough that you want to spend the rest of your life with them, maybe not that extreme, but it gets to the point.

rofl ah, to hear a younger version of myself yet again...

it's even funnier to say that, since i'm only 18 xd

but seriously, i disagree...mainly with that bit about how a person has to be moral, etc etc to be perfect. indeed, if a person were a model of morality, unable to be hurt, and could never die, i would argue that they would be highly IMperfect. someone who is always moral would never make a mistake, and could never learn or grow, never improve themselves or others. that would be a boring person to be with.

furthermore, people become close to each other in several ways. one is by helping each other through times of pain, physical or emotional.if someone is invulnerable, they can not be hurt, either physically or psychologically, and so your "perfect" person and his/her lover could never truly bond.

thirdly...who would want to be immortal. it would be BORING to be immortal, and if you and your lover were BOTH immortal, you might be able to entertain each other a bit, but in the end it'd still be boring, ESPECIALLY if you could not get closer to each other by helping each other learn from their mistakes and helping each other recover from times of hurting.

i think love is a very real thing that goes beyond liking someone to a great degree. i don't know how to define it, but i think it is deeper than either my younger self or you think.

and before you say - well you're only saying this because you've got a girl who you "love"... i had one. she broke up with me. it hasn't changed my views of love. indeed, it was the relationship that helped me learn that love was deeper than you say, but ending the relationship did not change my opinion of love.  

[Deaths Krow]

I wasn't saying that you had to be perfect to feel love, I was useing that form of perfection as an example for why perfection is no possible, and that you may like someone so much that you call it love, but you need perfect compatibility to be in love with someone.  

[MegaTherion777]

All7

I wasn't saying that you had to be perfect to feel love, I was useing that form of perfection as an example for why perfection is no possible, and that you may like someone so much that you call it love, but you need perfect compatibility to be in love with someone.

well right. and i'm arguing that it doesn't need to be perfect compatability - if you were perfectly compatible, you could never develop as people, never grow closer, never learn from each other. compatability helps, but it most definitely doesn't have to be perfect.  

[Stallin]

i believe love is a word used to describe a strong emotion. Like hate, it comes and goes and you can act on it. You can act on lust, but you cant lust someone. lots of people believe too much that love is deeper then that an lasts forever and whatnot. I think its an emotion, a powerfull emotion, but i dont think its what keeps people together for their whole lives. Its what comes from love between the two. not the emotion itself. Love can come and go but it does exist and emotions are never perfect, thats just what i believe.  

[moonfox6]

Love is an interesting thing to try to define. It depends what kind of love you're talking about. On the whole, however, I think if you can tick most of the boxes below for the different catagories, it's love.

Love for my parents: being comfortable in their presence, feeling a deep and long lasting gratitude towards them, wanting their respect, wanting them to be happy and wanting to help make them happy

Love for my friends and siblings: respecting them, wanting their approval and respect, recognising their good and attractive qualities when I think about them, wanting to be in their company, feeling relaxed and happy in their presence

Romantic Love: wanting to be with the other person, wanting to share your life/history/dreams/thoughts with them so that they totally understand you as a person, wanting to understand them as much as you want to be understood, wanting to make them happy (I have to say, I don't buy the whole thing about wanting them to be happy even at my expense - I would rather that they were happy with me). Now I know this one strays into the realms of lust, but I think that it is an essential part of Romantic Love - wanting to be with the other person physically, wanting to touch them and be touched. You don't have Romantic Love without that. It's called Platonic Love.

Oh, and Re: 'One and Onlies', I don't think they exist. Or if they do, chances are you'll never meet them. There are six billion people on Earth, after all. I think that we love everyone with the same intensity, but that the love seems stronger if we share common interests with the other person.  

[27x]

In your title you said,"... How do you define it.

Love isn't a thing that exists. It is an attribute, therefore some people experience it and some people don't.

Supposedly two people (Most commonly of oppisite gender) enjoy the other's mind, emotional attributes, and commonly physicle attributes( Not all of these might apply. If none apply then their is no love). Combined with pharamonal attraction, the brain forms sort of an idea of emmotional, and mental attatchment to the other person. After wich, they may or not get married. After marrage the species will reproduce, and a team will be formed. Some may argue that this might happen before marrage, but I would prefer that we don't. IT doesen't really matter as long as you think your opinion is correct, since it's a matter of choice.  

[Smartteaser192]

"LOVE" is a 4-letter word with a billion or so subjective definitions. People define love differently. And they say that it is among the most powerful positive forces man can attain. heart

There is a triangular theory of Love developed by psychologist Robert Sternberg.

The intimacy component refers to the close, bonded feelings that exist within loving relationships

passion component refers to the drives that lead to physical attraction and sexual acts

commitment component refers to the decision to love someone and to maintain that love.

C = Empty Love- occurs when we only have commitment, and is often the residual love that remains once the other types have faded.
C+I = Companionate Love- It often occurs in the later stages of a relationship after the passion has faded.
C+P = Fatous Love
I = Liking- occurs when we just have intimacy, such as in friendships.
I+P = Romantic Love- It involves both liking and physical desire for the other person.
P = Infatuation- occurs when we only have passion, such as in love at first sight. This type appears quickly and disappears almost as fast.
C+I+P = Consummate Love- consumate love is a combination of all three components. This is our society's ideal type of love, because it involves close friendship, physical urges, and a strong commitment.
C-I-P = Non-love- refers to the absence of all three components.

So, a description of an ideal (Near-perfect) love is what you call "Unconditional Consummate Agape".

That's how I see it with the help of Psychology.  

[x3 SuGarr CoOkiie]

I lived my life thinking that love was a force of affection one feels towards an individual that rises but never deminishes, but when I said that people that were/are "in love" told me otherwise.

So I am back to square one. That being: Love is a strong feeling of affection towards another.

Surely there is more to it than that, and I sure hope there is (haha), I just feel like it has to hit me in order for me to be able to explain it.