Being in love is all consuming, I want all of you, all of the time. I want to feel you, really feel you and taste every bit of your energy. I want to be where you are, I want you on my mind always. Or as Willie says, 'You Are Always On My Mind". We were married 49 years when my wife died
almost 3 years ago. When we were apart I would be excited with the thought of us coming back to one another.And when I saw her after being away for even a few hours it was as if I was seeing her for the first time. I was excited and nervous and wanted to feel her and hold her. We were in love from the first time we laid eyes on each other. This doesn't happen too often but it happened to me. Love is part of this feeling but being in love is the exquisitely beautiful and perfect form that Barry White, Al Green, Rightheous Brothers, and now Ed Sheeran and Bruno Mars sing about.Could we say that being in love is the more perfect place that love resides?

They can be stages, but I think more often that "being in love" often entail a person projecting onto the person they desire qualities which they don't really have . As the "in love" feeling sdissapte, they usually start to see the person for who they are rather than who they thought (desried them) them to be.

There is a difference,
to be 110% honest, I feel the difference is extreme lust.
I have loved 3 ladies that I thought I may spend the rest of my life with,
but was only in love with one of them, at age 40 after many years of marriage to someone I was not in love with, and well, didn't love either.

Love is easy. You just do it. Love everyone. Assume the good in them exists. Being in love is almost crazy if you don't have a child. It means you want to deal with someone else's problems. You want to be sad when they are gone. It's irrational. Its the original religion. I don't recommend it.

Being in love is taking loving someone a step further. Desire and passion become added to the mixture. But a foundation of love must be there first, otherwise it's just lust.

For me, the strongest love is what I have for my children. Being in true love, I have had that a couple of times, but it doesn't happen every time. I have fallen in lust more than a few times.

I used to think there is no difference between love and being in love, but there is. When you are "in love" the passion runs deep. Your rational mind shrinks. You do things in the name of love which hold the potential to tear it apart.

That other kind of love develops over time, and if we're lucky, we can get there through the fever of being in love. It requires patience and compassion, but I have yet to find it myself.

They are both a chemical reactions however they both merit different physical responses.

Ilove my dogs but im not in love with them the same as my mum.

Love is a strong positive feeling towards someone or something. "In love" is when you interject your ego into it.

You have to be in love to feel love. In my opinion they're the same.

In love is more loaded with romantic enamoured connotations while love is more broad sort of an emotion encompassing feeling of affection, romance, penchant, fondness and caring.

To me love is for friends and family. Maybe later in life the definition changes. Being in love refers to how someone feels who is in a monogomous relationship. Or someone who is in a long-term marriage may love their wiffe/husband after so many years or may still feel they are still in love with each other. Its a wonderful thing to be in love or love someone.

Being in love is an illusion caused by endorphins, dopamine, and other chemicals that run through your brain, and it is a sensation that always fades.

Actually loving someone is a cognitive choice, made time and time again. Love is as love does.

Maybe that sounds too clinical (or cynical), but it's how I see it.

I love you as my sister in my human family, I love you as the unique person that you are, I love you as a friend. I do not know you and am not "in" love with you. If I were "in" love with you I would be wanting you, to be near you, to touch you. That is what being "in" love does to a person. IMHO

If you think you are in love, you aren't. It is a feeling, not an idea. When you are in love, you know it. It will not be something you should feel the need to question.

I can explain the love of a parent, sibling, friend, or pet. Romantic love? I don't have a clue anymore.