Baby, don't hurt me.

It's when you value someone else more than yourself in every way and want them to be happy moreso than your own acquisition of happiness. In other words, someone who means so much to you that you would sacrifice your own happiness to ensure theirs. And it often tends to last when they feel the same about you.

I hear that it's a second hand emotion

My little philosophy...
Love is the interconnectedness of sentient beings. It's just a human construct like time. But constructs like time and love are important to make us human. It's how we see ourselves and define ourselves and others. To me, communication is a form of love. There is good and bad forms of communication: You can kiss or punch someone in the mouth, but everything we do as a form of connection, intentional or reactional, is a form of love. Love is life itself, playing istelf out in the cosmos. Love gives a veil of meaning to the meaningless energy. Love allows life to procreate and devour our tiny little worlds.

♫♪ baby don't hurt me ♪♫

Love is when you are able to add affection to your kindness.

Its an action. Its unconditional. Its unlike anything else

Addiction to neurochemicals.

I am not sure whether or not I love. When I was younger I used to think the infatuation I experienced was love. As I've gotten older, that has mostly gone away. I feel a little bit of affection for family, but I'm not sure how strong that bond actually is. I would like to think it is strong but it's never been tested. Now, when I like someone it is this pleasant sensation of completeness in my heart with a dash of longing thrown in. I can break down what I'm feeling but when I am trying to relay my feelings to someone, they almost always seem paltry compared to what others express. Am I broken or not normal because of this? I still don't know. At least as far as love goes.

Love is the concentrated desire to see another the perfect expression of beingness, uncorrupted by false appearances of the ugly, ignorant, and intolerant expressions of human depravity.

Love is never having to say your sore

Pheromones

Okay, I'll relate this is a way that Atheists should understand; love is what we do. My father told me when I was a little kid that we show love with what we do, not what we say. We tend to romanticize the abstract concept, but it is real. Think for a minute of the personal sacrifices you'd make for someone you love versus someone you don't. Are you beginning to see it?

Think about what you'd do for your mother, father, sibling versus a friend, see it? Now, think about what you'd do for someone you both romantically love and feel partnered with, what would you be willing to do for them? Love varies by degree of what we are willing to sacrifice for someone else. Romantic love gets confused often because the initial lust fades and we are left with just pait-bonding love. It is natural, but takes quite a bit of work. Most people aren't willing to stay much long after the romantic/lust love fades, hence the reason you might feel like love is a healed cut, but with this understanding of love as actions you should better be able to tell who is worth investing this kind of love in.

Love is unavoidable for me. There are so many people throughout my life I love deeply and always. When I lament I might not meet someone to love as a partner and friend again,someone shows up.

Love is putting up with each others' manure.

I've learned to love myself. For me that's enough at this point though it would be nice to have another I at least respect and care about and get it in return.

"Love is a healed cut"

Interesting definition. To me, the spectrum of Love Definitions are like the difference between looking through a microscope and looking through a telescope. Finding internal self love is what gives perspective to the understanding Universal love and adds to it's depths and appreciation of self, family, and community. The value of what one's own connection to another is based on the ability to give to one's self. When you find your worth, (not assuming you haven't) ....The Way to loving yourself..., then and only then will you learn how to love someone else but more importantly, how to let someone love you. Learning to love myself was one of the hardest things I had to learn to do. The other, was learning to communicate that standard without feeling selfish. When I learned to define love as a gift, sharing that gift became just as important as breathing. Sure, neurobiology will talk about pheromones and chemisrty, and a poety may talk about situational connection and serendipity. A psychologist may bring up codependency or associative tramas but in truth, to love is to know yourself, your place in the world and your value in it. I hope your learn how to love someone more than yourself. That is the truest form of trust and vulnerability. Vulnerability is living without fear, and trust is believing in someone else to not abusebyour vulnerability Anyhow, that's my blah blah blah. So cheers to you and finding love.

To me romantic love is our biological predisposition to reproduce and destress one another, but just because its that to me I do still desire to have it. As far as love for family and friends I say look up kinship, it explains pretty well why we as animals protect each other.

Love varies from type of love.
My love for my mother
My love for my brother
My love for my friends
My love for my kids
Every one of those is different the only feeling that is shared between them is fondness

Primordial.

Hmmmm. What do you mean by "a healed cut"?

I am not sure that I believe in fairy tale love, but there is someone that I constantly think about when I am not with her, and feel happy and warm when I am with her. I think that might be a good operational definition of love...

There is a difference in "loving" someone and being "in love" with someone. I have been "in love" (or at least I thought I was) more than once and it is a two edged sword that can cut you to pieces with both sides. Loving someone can bring you joy and/or disappointment, but it does not cut you to the quick and hurt, harm or damage you.

I stumbled upon this from the similar posts column and was naturally intrigued.

Younger people still seem to confuse love with lust. Since my husband of 38 years died, I have done that twice so I cannot condemn anyone else for doing it because lust is a powerful emotion.

I had a wonderful love with my husband even though it started with lust so hopefully I can describe it. Love for us was always wanting to make the other person happy whenever possible. Love was always believing the other person had the best of intentions not only toward each other but also toward other human beings. Love was accepting the other persons goals without overt or internal criticism. Love was internally acknowledging the other person's failings and not complaining or talking about them. Love was complete trust in the other person's faithfulness. Love was the JOY of both sex and companionship. Love was easy.

I think a lot of people believe love is that thing you feel when puberty sets and you began noticing the opposite gender (or same gender if you're gay or whatever lol), which then leads to butterflies in your stomach, which sometimes leads to rejection, which then leads to that feeling of a "broken heart". But, in my opinion, this is lust/infatuation with the opposite (or same) gender. The heart broken feeling would be the feeling of rejection and/or loneliness.

However, I know what love is to me because I've had it, and still have it with my nieces and nephews. No, I'm not some weird sex criminal lol

To me, love is giving up EVERYTHING for the person(s) in question, including life and freedom. For me, It isn't about sex, although I do believe you can make love to someone you do love. I know I truly love someone when they leave for an extended period of time and I'm constantly thinking about their wellbeing and safety.

Thats just a few of what I believe to be signs that one loves another unconditionally.

I defintely agree! Love is messy. A lot of people think that there is someone out there who has been chosen for them in a divine or spiritual way. Thats bs. Love takes hard work on both sides, it is never something that is given by god or anything else. Love is a choice but it can also be demanding but beautiful at the same time.