Define "Love"

I have looked quite a bit, but have not found a definition of love that I like. How do you know you are in love? (Don't say "You will know." Ignore that part for now.) What are the signs? I know the symptoms I would consider, but I'm looking for other people's definitions.

Here are some of the things I have come up with.
Smiling when you think of them.
Thinking of them all of the time.
Missing them when you are apart, even if it's a matter of hours. (Not in a bad way, just the desire to have them back with you.)
The desire for them to attain what is best for them, even if the results are not as pleasant for yourself.

What else can you add or what do you disagree with?

deleted

I love lamp!!!

JM-99

"Love" = "Psychosis"

Love is when I mash my thumb into the piston of my Chrome PD.... :kiss:

The only way to know you are in "love" is that the affection lasts long enough for all the really irritating stuff about each other to pop up and despite all that, you want to stay together.

Honestly though, love is a neurochemical that gets us "high". When two people decide to be each others number one customer as well as each others only dealer, that's love. Eventually a tolerance to the drug builds up and addiction sets in which we don't realize until the agony of a breakup forces withdrawel.

jhereg said:

I have looked quite a bit, but have not found a definition of love that I like. How do you know you are in love? (Don't say "You will know." Ignore that part for now.) What are the signs? I know the symptoms I would consider, but I'm looking for other people's definitions.

Here are some of the things I have come up with.
Smiling when you think of them.
Thinking of them all of the time.
Missing them when you are apart, even if it's a matter of hours. (Not in a bad way, just the desire to have them back with you.)
The desire for them to attain what is best for them, even if the results are not as pleasant for yourself.

What else can you add or what do you disagree with?

Click to expand...

Love is an incredibly powerful word. When you're in love, you always want to be together, and when you're not, you're thinking about being together because you need that person and without them your life is incomplete.

This love is unconditional affection with no limits or conditions: completely loving someone. It's when you trust the other with your life and when you would do anything for each other. When you love someone you want nothing more than for them to be truly happy no matter what it takes because that's how much you care about them and because their needs come before your own. You hide nothing of yourself and can tell the other anything because you know they accept you just the way you are and vice versa.

It's when they're the last thing you think about before you go to sleep and when they're the first thing you think of when you wake up, the feeling that warms your heart and leaves you overcome by a feeling of serenity. Love involves wanting to show your affection and/or devotion to each other. It's the smile on your face you get when you're thinking about them and miss them.

Love can make you do anything and sacrifice for what will be better in the end. Love is intense, and passionate. Everything seems brighter, happier and more wonderful when you're in love. If you find it, don't let it go.

One word frees us of all the weight and pain of life:

That word is love.

-Sophocles

[font=&quot]Just consider true love in the eyes of God compared to the ways of the world, the ways of humans, the ways of family, and the ways of relationships. Love as it was intended to be always puts others interests first.
In love, there is no fear of failure, no jealousy, no mistrust. You are to trust completely, always have faith, never give up, and give your all no matter what the situation calls for. You would not withhold parts of your self for fear of rejection, future embarrassment, or fear of pain; you would share your self in total. Your ego has nothing to do with real love. There is nothing to hide, everything is in the open, and your motives are perfectly clear and just as pure. Very simply put, pure love is not about you at all, it is about the one you love.
When you try to protect your own feelings, you cannot possibly have this type of love for anything or anybody. Your heart must be focused on the object of your love, not your own self interests. You cannot possibly keep score of pains that were caused, because you forgive them instantly, the object of concern is not yourself but others. Think of all the marriages and friendships poisoned by the spirit of retribution. When you care about someone else more than yourself, you would gladly be hurt to protect them. Your concern is centered in the others feelings not yours at all, you love them regardless of consequence.
Selfishness has no part at all in real love, it perverts the very nature of love. This is love, and sacrifice is part of love, putting others ahead of yourself. Love edifies the object of love, you want them to grow, you nurture them. You forgive instantly and in total. It is forgotten forever, never to be brought up in a moment of anger. Past wrongs are forgotten, and as hard as it is to forgive and forget, love sees past all flaws.
The purpose of your actions are something outside of yourself. Not a series of cause and effects calculated to elicit a desired response from someone. The term, love is used too often in situations it does not belong, in situations that are not remotely about love.
The superfluous use of the word love in the world today has just become appalling. People saying that they "love" each other days, weeks, and months after meeting each other and can break up just as quickly have, which I'm very sorry to say, a very warped view of love. Love cannot come and go, as many people may think. People do not "fall in and out of love" just like that. A pure and true love is everlasting, and this type of love is very hard to come by nowadays.
[/font] [font=&quot]In pure love we care about the object of our love, we do not even consider the cost to ourselves. There is no room for calculation, manipulation or being selfish. Motives are pure, they meet the standards set above. There is no room for possession, control, dominance or any other self motivated behaviors that are so common in relationships. All the common games in relationships are banished from your life, they are beyond consideration. Remember your love is not for your gain but for the gain of the one you love. Your attitude has to view sacrifice as better than self gain. You should much rather be hurt than hurt someone else, remember when you love you protect the one you love, no more "me first."
If true love is unselfish, and selfishness defines man, then is true love really possible? Yes, and it is the most amazing feat of all. To love and be loved in return is the most marvelous achievement two individuals can come across. Learning to be unselfish cannot be done alone because one cannot learn to love, without striving for love. Very contradictory to the individuality of human nature isn't it? It is not in the nature of humans to love so purely; and love, love as it was intended, seems impossible to achieve with such imperfection. Humans are, bluntly put…flawed. Though we are individual beings, we are all connected as one. It is in human nature to work together, depend on each other, and learn from each other. So is selflessness formed after love or does love form after selflessness?
It is neither. Love and selflessness form together, simultaneously. Through a relationship, a bond, and a partnership where each partner learns from the other, living, growing, and sharing experiences together, a bond so strong that it unites two hearts as one. They share joys and sorrows, helping each other through the good and the bad. Essentially what I'm trying to say is that if two hearts become one, then they can be selfish (being an innate human behavior) together. It is the bond of selflessness and love that live within selfishness itself.
Love is there, but it cannot be rushed, nor can it be simply waited for. Take advantage of opportunities and give your all. One man's work is another's fate, and if we keep working together, living and learning from each other, growing and laughing, true love can be found. But in the meantime people, take love slow…it's not going anywhere anytime soon…
That's it. Straight from the heart.[/font]

[font=&quot]Love is all you need.[/font]

[size=-1]"Love is the condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own."

Robert. A. Heinlein

:rock::rock::rock:
[/size]

Love is a state of emotional instability.

That happy satisfied feeling like you'd get from a very tasty meal...

There was a line that Al PAcino said to Keanu about love in the film Devil's Advocate...I can't recall it now.

It is a "feeling" that you feel ... and in time // you add baggage and
definitions to it
You either "feel it" or you don't have the feeling...
We are sort of like radios... some with AM, FM, etc...
some radios tune well into the right band-wave and catch the
tunes.
Some miss-out all-together.

Love seems to flow, here and there, everywhere, it's alive, one
can tune-in and experience, and pass-it-on to whoever is close-by.

Love to me personally is not a man-women thing... Yes, it happens
there too... but it can happen between anyone.

love is when the other persons happiness is more important than your own

Manzerick said:

love is when the other persons happiness is more important than your own

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Well said Manzerick, well said :rock:

I'm a one language man. So, I couldn't say whether the problem experienced in English is a fault with the English language or if it's a fault with modern attempts in most languages to lump several meanings under one word.

In Greek, there were several words that expressed different "loves". Although related, they weren't the same thing. Not all are natural developments; some have to be developed, refined, and permitted to grow. Others come naturally. The predominate Greek terms were Eros, Storge, Phileo, and Agape. The ones that would be considered most closely the natural urge and feelings of the human "animal", would be Eros and Storge. Still, even as natural characteristics of the human animal, they're still worthy and important forms of love. Storge, the love within family, develops naturally, and to a certain extent immediately, paternally, and especially maternally. The other, Eros, is the hook that attracts you toward a romantic partner.

Phileo and particularly agape, are in a higher class, and results from rising above being just the "human creature".

Eros hasn't always been a result socially as it is now. In the "modern" world, the predominate action is to individually select the one that somehow triggers a "magic" something or another. It hasn't always been so. In previous times pre-arrangements, purchasing a partner as "property", and other means have been used as the means of selection. Regardless, it's important to give consideration to all four forms of love.

I have a site that I keep around, and have received some emails thanking me for it. So, I continue to let it stick around. It deals in the subject. It's called Word's Of Love

It's quite easy really.

Gonna find my baby, gonna hold her tight
gonna grab some afternoon delight.
My motto's always been; when it's right, it's right.
Why wait until the middle of a cold dark night.
When everything's a little clearer in the light of day.
And you know the night is always gonna be there any way.

Sky rockets in flight. Afternoon delight. Afternoon delight.

Thinkin' of you's workin' up my appetite
looking forward to a little afternoon delight.
Rubbin' sticks and stones together makes the sparks ingite
and the thought of rubbin' you is getting so exciting.

Sky rockets in flight. Afternoon delight. Afternoon delight.

Started out this morning feeling so polite
I always though a fish could not be caught who wouldn't bite
But you've got some bait a waitin' and I think I might try nibbling
a little afternoon delight.

Sky rockets in flight. Afternoon delight. Afternoon delight.

Please be waiting for me baby when I come around.
We could make a lot of lovin' 'for the sun goes down.

Sky rockets in flight. Afternoon delight. Afternoon delight.




There is actually no such thing as love only mutually beneficial exchanges. Sorry to have to break the news to you.

Love is the one thing that can outshine any flashlight....

Amongst the family and friends that I was with waiting for the pizza to arrive was my, then, one year old nephew. As a women there was trying to teach my nephew to say, "I love mommy", being the good uncle that I am, perverted him to say, "I love PIZZA". When the pizza, finally, arrived, my nephew scurried around the crowd exclaiming "I love pizza! I love pizza!".

73
dim

Love is sacrifice.....

Thank you sir!

I think I read it somewhere online b4

D@rk Messenger said:

Well said Manzerick, well said :rock:

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jhereg said:

Smiling when you think of them.
Thinking of them all of the time.
Missing them when you are apart, even if it's a matter of hours. (Not in a bad way, just the desire to have them back with you.)
The desire for them to attain what is best for them, even if the results are not as pleasant for yourself.

What else can you add or what do you disagree with?

Click to expand...

All of that is 'puppy love" or infatuation or "greeting card" love. Not real. Some of that happens on occasion in real love but it's only real love after the chemically induced idealism fades and one has a choice and not a greater or lesser compulsion. The listed things all totally apply to the early stages of cocaine (and most other) addiction as well as they do to the chemically induced, delusional neurosis of infatuation . There is a great deal of evidence that drugs like cocaine activate the same receptors involved in infatuation.

The "not in a bad way" disclaimer shows what most of us want to , and TV has taught us, to believe in love, that it's an entirely positive force. Really, love is pretty destructive and is one of the principal motivators of violence. "Love addiction" is a recognized syndrome complete with typical self destructive behaviours. Although it's trite to say, "To love another one must first love oneself" is very true. What does it mean though? The characteristics that you listed are as much a part of the early stages of a healthy mature relationship as they are an unhealthy , destructive relationship. The difference is primarily that when two individuals who do not hold themselves in high esteem are effected by these feelings , priorities get all out of wack. Serious flaws of character are overlooked in order to continue the feelings associated with the infatuation, other relationships (family and friends) and opportunities (school, work, etc) are also comprimised , as are ones own core values for the sake of continuing the infatuation buzz.

Real love, isn't characterized by feelings, it's characterized by behaviour .