[Guest]

When people say they love each other what do they really mean? Is love one solid emotion, or a number of factors?

Obviously their is physical attraction. And everyone becomes attached to people if they spend enough time around them (work colleges etc). But that on its own isn't love.

Then their are pragmatic reasons for being with someone, financial security, wanting a family etc. But that isn't love.

Then their is that horrible, obsessive 'crush' type of love, where you feel nervous around them etc. But you can feel that about someone and hardly know them, and you overlook all their negative qualities. So that kind of 'love' isn't really the foundation of a healthy relationship.

Can you love someone forever? Does the way you love them change over time?

[prawnprincess]

I'm just a novice in the subject, but I'll give it a try.
I once read that love is "The ability and willingness to allow those that you care for to be what they choose for themselves, without any insistence that they satisfy you." I know that definition could probably be used for unromantic love, too, but I think it has something important.

I suppose that before love could be the nervous feelings and physical attraction, but they can either die off or grow into real love. But how do you know it's real love? I know for a long time I was more worried about what my boyfriend thought about me than what I was really feeling. So- I think that the real love may start when you stop worrying about what the other person thinks about you and you feel a strong connection to each other even when you aren't together....

[Guest]

Love is mutual respect in every regard of the relationship.

Physical/mental/social/financial/emotional, etc etc.

That is the only thing that will keep two people together for an extended period of time.

[Guest]

But everything you have mentioned applied to platonic love, or the love for a family member. What defines romantic love?

[acerousme]

being a best friend?? Someone that you cannot live without.

When one says romance it could be a number of things...physical, emotional, social...

But really...I thinks its the ability to sit in complete silence for five minutes with eachother, and not have it become an akward moment.

Or someone you can STAND for five minutes...lol

[Guest]

Maybe love is letting people be just what they want to be, the door always must be left unlocked.

[WildChild]

Here are what some well known authors have said of love:

"What greater thing is there for two human souls than to feel that they are joined...to be at one with each other in silent unspeakable memories?"
-George Elliot-

"I leaned down...and kissed him. And the world cracked open."
-Agnes deMille-

"When you yearn for your lover, don't resist the desire, but also don't attach it to something less than your deepest feeling-truth. No carnal embrace in itself equals eternal love. No anatomical perfection satisfies the emptiness of gifts ungiven. No genital friction adds up to the fire of the heart unbound."
-David Deida-

"We find rest in those we love, and we provide a resting place in ourselves for those who love us."
-Saint Bernard of Clairvaux-

"The most powerful symptom of love is a tenderness which becomes at times almost insupportable"
-Victor Hugo-

[baja]

One time I remember a woman who ran pretty far to see me. When she arrived, she was in a sweat and when I asked why she didn't just walk, she replied... "because I wanted to be with you for as long as I could." Needless to say, I was speechless!

For me, it's moments like this that give you true glimpses of love...

[Guest]

But everything you have mentioned applied to platonic love, or the love for a family member. What defines romantic love?

Romantic love? Or lust or infatuation?

It's superficial, it's fleeting...and rarely lasts.

What's left when that subsides is Mutual Respect.