How do you feel about the word love

“Love is a many splendored thing. Love lifts us up where we belong. All you need is love!”

Moulin Rouge – a movie all about love with their well-known quote, “the greatest thing you’ll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return”. The movie perfectly portrays how two people who were not allowed to be together would do everything in their willpower to love each other till they take their last breath.

That’s probably the general view of loving someone unconditionally that you would do everything and anything to be together. However, with over 7 billion people on this planet, not everyone will have the same definition. Love is a very diverse term. Everyone needs it in some way or another, and therefore, everyone has their own definition to what ‘love’ means to them.

Haikal, 12, Romantic, Adventurous

In my opinion, love is not how much you say ‘I love you’ but how much you can prove it’s true. It’s about how patient and kind you are, it does not include boasting, it is not how arrogant and rude you are.

Love means accepting a person with all their failures, stupidities, and their imperfection. For example, love means there is no more busy world, it’s always about priorities. You will always find times you feel the most important about.

So in conclusion, I think love is a variety of different feelings; it’s about accepting someone for who they are and have feelings and do whatever it takes to have their forgiveness or even their heart.

Joseph, 21, Withdrawn Over-Thinker

I don’t believe in love at first sight. Attraction at first sight, yes. Affection at first sight, perhaps. But love?

Love, to me, rests on the same cline as companionship. And companionship is the foundation of love. Respect, understanding, and enthusiasm are the pillars on which this foundation is built – not initial attraction, not initial perception.

I suppose I am, to an extent, a victim of the ‘mere-exposure effect,’ in which a preference for someone or something comes with familiarity. I was close friends with my girlfriend for seven years before ‘asking her out,’ and I truly think that this friendship has served as an excellent point of reference over the last two years.

Therein lies the crux of my contention: love is not the gunshot signaling that the race has begun, but nor is it the feeling of crossing the finishing line. Love is the race – the journey – itself. Cliché? Yeah, sort of, but I do think it holds that the muddy concept of ‘love’ cannot be confined to the claustrophobic space of initial meeting, and this casts heavy doubts over the idea of love at first sight.

I respect but can’t identify with the desire for ‘one night stands’ or ‘wicked hooks,’ or whatever lingo is being used these days to denote seemingly frivolous dealings with a significant (or not so significant) other. It simply isn’t in my personality to consider such physical interaction to be so detached from emotional connection.

Of course, that’s not to say that love is static; it is an ever-changing construct, arbitrarily named and largely blurred at its edges. For some people, love at first sight might both exist and be fruitful, and I’m totally fine with that. In fact, let me make an amendment to my opening statement: I don’t believe in love at first sight for me.

Love exists outside the realm of human relationships, but I think nuanced meaning clouds its existence. I love coffee, I love the fresh air, and I love poetry, but I’m not in love with them.

I am in love with my girlfriend.

Kirsty, 23, Secretly Sentimental

An important element of love is to love yourself. Accept yourself and embrace the parts of yourself that you don’t necessarily like about yourself. This is an important lesson in how to love someone else. If you love yourself, you can be more generous with the love you give to others. You find yourself feeling more fulfilled and more loved than you could possibly imagine. You’ll find yourself smiling at the thought of whoever it is that you find you love. Love means seeing flaws and accepting them as positive traits. You’ll feel a sense of completeness that you never knew you were lacking in the first place, and no matter how long you’ve been apart whether it be hours or months you’ll feel like you’re coming home.

Luke, 21, Avocado Enthusiast

To possess a true love for something, some place, some ideology or someone and feel the reciprocation is often perceived as a final hurdle on a pathway to utopia, ‘a hypothetical place or state of things where everything is perfect.’

If I were to use something as simple as an “avocado” as a representation of any human, object or place capable of being truly loved; love can be defined to me as the feelings you are overcome with when you stumble across one of these wonderful green oval-shaped specimens, one that is of perfect ripeness, far superior to any avocado you’ve found on the shelves before. So flawless that as your knife pierces through the delicate skin effortlessly leaving you two immaculate halves not only does your heart and mind constantly discover new boundaries of excitement but a level of contentedness and satisfaction settles in.

With a little feta cheese to accompany, all spread over the finest sourdough toast, and experienced in your own personal paradise, each bite brings forth feelings of invincibility and superiority that not a thing in the world can overcome the sheer happiness. I love avocados.

Sarah, 14, Open-Minded and Exciting

What is love to me? Love is something unconditional and can’t really be explained in words. Of course, I’ve never experienced it yet, but it’s something I wish to feel in my lifetime.

The best way you can really say it is, it’s a feeling that you can’t shake, no matter how hard you try. The feeling when you love that special someone or something you can never live without. The feeling to need them and protect them.

Love is when you look at that person, and your heart accelerates, you get goosebumps. Every time you touch them you feel the electricity radiating off the both of you. You can never feel selfish with them and sacrifice anything or everything if it means you can be with them for the rest of your life. It’s when that person makes you happy no matter how you’re feeling. No matter the gender, ethnicity or person.

But love isn’t easy, it comes with consequences and sacrifices that if you are willing to make you know you’ve found the right someone/something.

I know very few people who are truly, deeply, and madly in love with each other, and let me tell you every time I see that it gives me the shred of hope that there actually might be someone out there for me.

So that’s what love is to me. How bout you?

Sharvin, 19, Dog Lover

Everyone at a pinnacle point in their life has experienced love regardless if they were loved or have been loved. It’s an inevitable feeling that captures the heart with full on passion, infatuation, and desire. It comes in all sorts of forms like with family, friends or an intimate love. In my experience, love “feels so good but hurts so bad”, I went through many amazing memories of my life with the women I love but at the end, it will either end up a fairytale or just like a wrecking ball being swung at you at immense pace.

My love generally lies in the animal kingdom. Such exquisite creatures roaming on our planet for millions of years and have been proven a predominant significance. Dogs are my favorite, especially pugs, golden retrievers, shih tzu, and corgi’s! I have a pet dog that, in all honesty, feels like another younger sibling. Their presence is a remedy for sadness or stress; they will be there through your ups and downs, which clearly defines the term, “dogs are a man’s best friend”. They may be a little annoying at times when it comes to barking or pooping all over the house but hey they are not as privileged as humans to have an intellect.

Marina, 20, Classic and Eclectic

To me, love is the most powerful thing on this planet. It can make you go crazy, feel every emotion a human ought to feel all mixed together, it can make you sick, and it can also make you feel more alive than anything ever can. Whether it’s loving yourself or loving someone else (or even loving an idea or a thing), it will consume you and make you feel infinite.

To me, I know that love is the greatest thing out there – that without it, we are nothing. Something that pushes you to achieve it, no matter what others say or who stops you. It’s the happiness it can bring you when you’re feeling down and once taken away, that’s when you feel like everything has gone to hell.

To be frank, it is dangerous to love, but it’s a risk you should be willing to take. Love so deeply it overwhelms you. Once you fall in love with something or someone, you’ll know it. Trust me on this. It may take time, but it’ll be worth it. You just need to find your star.

Featured photo credit: Susanne Nilsson via flickr.com

A relationship comprises friendship, sexual attraction, intellectual compatibility, and, of course, love. Love is the glue that keeps a relationship strong. It is deeply biological. But what is love, and how do you know if you are truly in love? 

It isn’t easy to define love because everyone’s perception of real love can be dramatically different. People often get confused between lust, attraction, and companionship. Hence, there is no one best definition of love.     

However, love can be summarized as an intense feeling of euphoria and deep affection for someone or something. This love definition or love meaning might only encompass some of the emotions that comprise how you feel when you are in love.      

Is love an emotion? Yes. 

Can abstract emotions such as love be defined in specific terms? Maybe not. 

However, there are certain words and actions that fall in the realm of love, while others do not. 

Some gestures can be termed love. On the other hand, some other emotions and feelings can be confused for love, but people soon realize that they are not true love. Here is to understanding more about love and the feeling.

What is the real meaning of love?

If you want to define love in one sentence, love is one of the most profound emotions humans experience. It is a combination of attraction and closeness. The person we feel attracted to or close to is the person we are usually in love with.            

Such a person can be a friend, parent, sibling, or even our pet. Such love is based on a feeling of attraction or affection.

The full meaning of love can be seen in different ways because there are different types of love. The answer to the question, “What is love for you?” can differ for everyone, depending on the relationship in context. 

As per the Cambridge dictionary, love is defined as liking another adult very much and being romantically and sexually attracted to them or having strong feelings of liking a friend or person in your family.

While this is a more literal definition, love can be defined in many other ways.

How to describe the romantic meaning of love? 

Feelings of love can be defined as an amalgamation of various other emotions. Love is caring, compassion, patience, not being jealous, not having expectations, giving yourself and other people a chance, and not rushing. 

What does love mean, then? You ask. Love has often been used as a noun, but love is a verb in practice. It is about what we do for others and how we make others feel loved and cared for.

The history of love                         

Like most things around the world, love has also transformed over the years and centuries. Love was not always the way we know it now. 

Research shows that back in the day, love was secondary or not even considered when it came to a union between two people. Marriages, which in some cultures and parts of the world are known as the ultimate goal of a romantic relationship, were mostly transactional. 

People marry based on whether or not the marriage would bring them any benefits in terms of wealth and power.

However, if we look at art forms such as poetry, love is an old emotion – something people have been experiencing for a long time. 

What does real love feel like?

Love is a holistic feeling. It involves many elements, words, and actions which define love. What love means to you depends on how it makes you feel and the experiences it brings into your life.  

Many people may wonder what is the meaning of love in a relationship. The answer lies in the elements of love.

1. Care

Care is one of the primary elements of love. 

If we love someone, we care about them, their feelings, and their well-being. We may go out of our way to ensure they are okay and even compromise and sacrifice our needs and wants to give them what they need.

Related Reading: Simple Steps to Take Care of Your Relationships

2. Admiration

Admiration is very crucial in love and relationships. 

Admiration can be for their physicality or even for their mind and personality. Liking someone for their external and internal self and respecting their thoughts is an essential element of love.

3. Desire

Desire is both sexual and physical and mental. 

Just wanting to spend more time with someone, being around them, and wanting them – are all parts of the desire you feel when you are in love with someone. 

12 telltale signs of love

Love is an emotion, but people do show signs of being in love. You can tell if someone is in love with you by the things they do for you, their words, and how they behave with you.

Here are some signs that can explain “What is love” in an informed manner:

1. Love is generous

In a truly loving relationship, we give to the other without an expectation of return. We need to keep an account of who did what for the other. Giving pleasure to our partner gives us pleasure, too.

2. We feel what our partner feels

The true meaning of love is to feel a sense of joy when we see our partner happy. When we see that they are sad or depressed, we feel their blue mood, too. With love comes empathy for the other person’s emotional state.

          

3. Love means compromise

The real meaning of love in a relationship is to willfully compromise your needs to accommodate your partner’s needs or desires.

But we don’t sacrifice ourselves in doing this, nor should the other person require us to sacrifice ourselves for their gain. That’s not what love is all about in a relationship; that’s control and abuse.

4. Respect and kindness

What is true love?

When we love, we act respectfully and kindly toward each other.

We do not intentionally hurt or denigrate our partners. When we talk about them in their absence, it is with such warmth that the listeners can hear the love in our words. We do not criticize our partners behind their backs.

Related Reading: Niceness Vs Kindness in Relationships-what Matters the Most?

5. We act with ethics and morals

Our love for the other person enables us to act morally and ethically with them and in our community. Their presence in our life makes us want to be better people so that they will continue to admire us.

6. We guard each other’s solitude

With love, we never feel lonely, even when alone. The very thought of the other person makes us feel as if we have a guardian angel with us at all times.

7. Their success is yours as well

What is true love in a relationship?

When our partner succeeds at something after a long effort, we beam with joy as if we were the winner, too. There is no feeling of jealousy or competition, just pure pleasure at seeing our beloved’s success.

8. They are always on our mind

Even when separated for work, travel, or other commitments, our thoughts drift towards them and what they might be doing “right now.”

9. Sexual intimacy deepens

With love, sex becomes sacred. Unlike the early days, our lovemaking is now deep and holy, a true joining of bodies and minds.

10. We feel safe

The presence of love in the relationship allows us to feel protected and safe, as if the other person is a safe harbor for us to come home to. With them, we feel a sense of security and stability.

Watch this video to learn more about creating a safe relationship:

11. We feel seen and heard

Our partner sees us for who we are and still loves us. We can show all our positive and negative sides and receive their love unconditionally.

They know who we are at our core. Love allows us to bare our souls and feel grace in return.

12. Love helps fight without fear

What is love all about? It is a sense of security.

If we are secure in our love relationship, we know we can argue and that it will not break us apart. We agree to disagree and don’t hold grudges for too long because we don’t like to hold bad feelings toward our partner.

8 different types of love 

There are eight different types of love, according to Greek mythology. These include –

1. Family love or Storgy

This refers to the type of love we share with our family – parents, grandparents, siblings, cousins, and others.

2. Marital love or Eros

This is the type of romantic love  we feel with a partner who we wish to marry or have already married. 

3. Love by the principle – Agape

This love is not based on emotions but on principles. It is referred to as the love for people we do not like, the love for the unlovable.

4. Brotherly love – Phileo/Philia

As the name suggests, brotherly love is love for our close ones, who we hold as dear as family. These people, however, are not our family by blood.

5. Obsessive Love – Mania

Obsessive love, also known as Mania, is an obsession with one person or a certain way of loving them. Such love hinders your growth and can interfere with your personal and professional life.

6. Enduring love – Pragma

Enduring love is the kind of deep, true love that people in long, meaningful relationships experience.

7. Playful love – Ludus

Playful love, also called young love, is what you feel when you think the whole world has conspired for the two of you to be together. This love, however, comes with an expiry date and might die down with time.

8. Self love – Philautia

This type of love has been talked about quite a bit, especially recently. It talks about appreciation and care for yourself before you set out to give it to someone else.

Related Reading: 30 Ways to Practice Self-Love and Be Good to Yourself

Impact of being in love

Love is a very powerful emotion. Therefore, it can have both positive and negative impacts on us. These effects of love can range from physical, emotional, and even psychological. True feelings of love can change us.

• The positive impact of love

Love is known to have a very positive impact on our well-being, body, and mind. 

The feelings of unconditional love, non-judgment, independence, and security that come with a healthy relationship can boost self-esteem and confidence. It also reduces stress, which is a common denominator for various mental health conditions such as anxiety or depression. 

Couple therapy shows that some of the positive impacts of love include the following –

• • Reduced risk of heart diseases
  • Less fatality risk due to heart attacks
  • Healthy habits
  • Increased chances of a long and healthy life
  • Lower stress levels
  • Reduced risk of mental health issues like depression.

• The negative impact of love

Unhealthy, unrequited love and bad relationships can negatively impact your body, mind, and well-being. 

Bad relationships that are toxic from the beginning or turn toxic with time can lead to insecurities that develop deeper than just the relationship and affect a person’s mental health and future relationships. 

The feelings of not being good enough, not doing things right, and being unable to meet expectations can make one feel less of themselves. People leaving without explanations, cheating, and lying can lead to abandonment issues that last longer than the relationship.

The negative impacts of love can be as follows.

• Increased risk of heart diseases
• Spiked risk of heart attacks
• High levels of stress
• Slower disease recovery
• Poor mental health

How to practice love

As mentioned above, love is an amalgamation of various factors and feelings. To practice love healthily and make the people in our lives feel loved, we have to be open to love. 

There is no sure-shot step-by-step guide on how to practice love, but these points may help.

• Be more compassionate, take care of the people you love
• Be vulnerable, let your guard down and open up to your partner/parent/sibling
• Be willing to accept your flaws
• Accept your mistakes and realize how they affect the other person
• Apologize
• Forgive the people you love when you can tell they are genuinely sorry
• Listen to your loved ones
• Prioritize your time with them
• Make sure you are there for the big days
• Reciprocate their words, gestures, and feelings
• Show affection
• Appreciate them

Some commonly asked questions

Love is an emotion based on which many poems, movies and songs are made. However, there are still many questions that it raises.

• What is the deepest form of love?

The deepest form of love is the one that encompasses within it feelings of empathy and respect. It is not just focused on selfish pursuits but changes the focus to look out for the well-being of the person you love. 

The deep meaning of love encompasses other emotions that show how much you value and care for the one you love. 

• Can you love two people at the same time?

Yes, it is possible for people to love multiple people at the same time. However, the elements of love for each person might be different. 

Studies have shown that people can love two people at the same time. One in six people interviewed in the study admitted to feeling attracted to and attached to more than one person simultaneously. 

The bottom line

If you have often asked yourself, “What is love in a relationship?” this article may have given you some insights. 

The bottom line is that certain feelings such as care, patience, respect, and others are what is love all about in a relationship. 

Factors such as wanting and needing love, how we love, and the importance of love are essential to understand when answering the question, “What is love?”

Love is a complex emotion and can differ from person to person. Even if you feel you need clarification about what is love and what it’s like to be in love, you will most likely figure it out with time. 

Coming up with a cohesive definition of love is a task that people have labored over for centuries. Because the love we feel for various people in our lives depends on context—how long we’ve known them, our specific relationship with them, etc.—it can be hard to conceptualize what love is exactly. Love can involve a mix of emotions, behaviors, and beliefs; and it is often associated with strong feelings of affection and respect. Some say that love is something that you only fully understand when you experience it yourself. While it is a hard concept to define, many have come up with different descriptions that help us better understand its different expressions. Below, we’re going to outline several different definitions of love and how they may apply to the relationships in your life. 

Love According To The Dictionary

The difficulty in creating an all-encompassing characterization of love is illustrated by the several different definitions that you come across in a dictionary. For example, the  of love according to Merriam-Webster range from “a strong affection for another arising out of kinship or personal ties” to “an assurance of affection”. 

The dictionary definitions will also change depending on the specific source you’re referencing. The Cambridge Dictionary, for instance, includes a definition that is romantic, platonic, and familial : “to like another adult very much and be romantically and sexually attracted to them, or to have strong feelings of liking a friend or person in your family”.

Love According To The Triangular Theory

Robert Sternberg’s  is a simple way of conceptualizing romantic love. According to this theory, true love is a combination of three components: intimacy, passion, and commitment. 

Intimacy

Intimacy can be described as the comforting connection you feel with someone. Intimacy often exists when we bond with someone on a deep level. It can happen when you and your partner spend meaningful time together, empathize with one another, and share your lives.  

Passion

Passion is characterized by a sexual attraction to someone. Passion may fluctuate over time, but it can still be an important aspect of a relationship. You may feel passion when you and your partner become physical, kiss, or even just look at each other. 

Commitment

Commitment indicates that one’s feelings have advanced to the point that they can see a future with their romantic interest. This aspect of love may develop when, for example, you ask your partner to move in with you. 

The three components of the triangular theory of love are interrelated; so, strengthening one area can help improve another. For example, you might notice how closely connected intimacy and commitment are when spending time alone with your partner makes you want to move in with them. 

Within this theory, there are eight different relationship types that may develop, based on which components exist in a partnership. For instance, you may experience romantic love—a love in which passion and intimacy are present, but commitment is not. Or you and your partner could feel companionate love—a love in which commitment and intimacy are present, but passion is not.

If a relationship covers all three points of the triangle, according to Sternberg’s theory, true love is present. Often, to develop these three components of love, you need to work past old habits, be vulnerable, and let someone see all of the different aspects of your personality and life. 

Love According To The Ancient Greeks

In ancient Greece, philosophers and other thinkers developed several different words for love, covering a range of relationships and situations. These forms of love help us understand how we express love for the people in our lives differently.  

Eros

Eros is a physical, sexual form of love. In Greece, Eros was the god of sexual desire. The Greeks believed this love could be dangerous, as it could cause people to behave in risky ways. Eros often happens during the beginning of a relationship, before deeper feelings take over. Eros doesn’t always indicate the presence of a partnership, though, and it doesn’t always lead to a more serious kind of love.

Philia

Philia is a platonic love—a love that you often see between friends. Philia was cherished in the world of ancient Greece as it was considered a pure form of love. Philia allows you to form a strong bond with friends, in which mutual affection and support are present. 

Ludus

Ludus is a light and flirtatious expression of love. It often happens early in a relationship, but it does not necessarily have to occur between partners. Often characteristic of the feelings between young people, ludus is often referred to as playful love.

Pragma

Pragma is a committed love that typically develops over a long period of time. Couples who experience pragma, which means practical, have formed a mutually beneficial relationship. This love embodies commitment, structure, and a common vision for the future. 

Agape

Agape love is characterized by selflessness and giving. It is often referred to as unconditional love, where you give without expecting to receive. It is also frequently attributed to people who are religious—the Greeks considered this type of love to be the love of the gods. 

Philautia

This is the love of yourself. However, there are two kinds of love that philautia can indicate. First, there’s a narcissistic form of self-love. Then, there’s the type of self-love marked by confidence, self-acceptance, and knowledge of your worth. With the latter type of love, you make efforts to practice self-compassion and care for yourself. Self-love can be an important part of being in a romantic relationship.

Storge

This is familial love. Storge can describe the love between a parent and child, siblings, or other family members. 

Storge can also apply to a close friend, particularly if they’re someone who you’ve grown up with.

How Do I Know If It’s Love?

When it comes to romantic relationships specifically, falling in love is an experience many people seek out. With all of the different definitions of love, though, it can be hard to know whether you indeed love someone. Although the presence of love in your life will depend on your exact situation and feelings, there are several signs that indicate you’re in love. 

One common indicator of love is empathy. When your partner feels discomfort, anger, or sadness, do you feel those emotions, too? Being able to understand and even experience your partner’s emotions is a sign that you have a loving relationship. 

You can also ask yourself whether you feel safe with your partner. While this can refer to physical safety, it may also describe a comfort and lack of distress when you’re around them. In some relationships, one partner feels as though they’re not able to say or do certain things, which can make it hard for a healthy partnership to form. 

If your partner prioritizes you in their life, commits to you, and works with you, that can signal the existence of love. This type of love is indicated in Sternberg’s triangular theory and the ancient Greeks’ pragma. Does your partner frequently talk about the future or want to share their life with you? This is a strong sign of love. 

In many cases, though, you’ll simply know that you’re in love. You may have an intuitive feeling that you’re with the right person or experience strong but ineffable emotions around them. In fact, the love you feel for your partner may be so unique that it doesn’t fit within someone else’s definition. 

If you’d like help parsing your feelings for your partner, talking to a therapist can help. A therapist can help you learn more about how you each prefer to express love while also giving you the tools to develop a strong, healthy relationship. 

Fostering Love With Online Therapy

Research shows that online therapy can help couples develop and nurture a loving relationship. In a study titled “More Than One Way to Say ‘I Love You’”, researchers found that online therapy improved participants’ ability to better understand one another and adopt more flexible points of view. Participants in the study reported experiencing enhanced relationship satisfaction and individual psychological improvement at a one-month follow-up. 

Online therapy can give you and your partner the tools and support to foster love in your relationship, regardless of how you define it. Utilizing an online therapy platform like ReGain, you and your partner can meet with a therapist remotely—through video call, voice call, or in-app messaging—which can be helpful if you’re not comfortable discussing topics like love in person. Your therapist can also connect you with useful resources, such as at-home exercises that can help you continue to develop a loving bond on your own time. Online therapy can help you and your partner address challenges in your relationship and develop a strong foundation of love. Continue reading for reviews of ReGain therapists from those who have sought help in the past. 

Therapist Reviews

“Sarah has been comforting to me through a very difficult transition. She has helped me to regain confidence and listen to my intuition. She is a great listener and has encouraged me to rediscover and use my voice.”

“With Cassandra’s help, we’ve been able to bring our relationship to a new, healthier, and much happier level, working through painful situations, growing as individuals and as a couple, and with tools to stay on this path. She’s very responsive, and it has been great to have her facilitate our messaging through the app all week. I highly recommend Cassandra. She’s skilled, supportive, and down-to-earth. We feel totally comfortable with her.”

Takeaway

Love can come in many forms and mean different things to different people. In relationships, love can be a binding phenomenon, helping partners deepen their connection and grow together. If you’d like help fostering love in your relationship, consider reaching out to a licensed therapist online. You and your partner deserve the strong bond that can come from a loving relationship.  

(1) I love french fries.  (2) I love the way I feel when I’m on vacation in Mexico.  (3) I love my children. (4) I love my profession.

All four of these statements are true but the word “love” in each one describes a very different experience.  In the first, it means I enjoy having french fries inside my mouth, the way they taste and then swallowing them down.  Sentence number two describes a subjective experience of pleasure aroused by my environment.  The third sentence concerns emotions I have about other people, while the fourth applies to a value or ideal that I hold.

At first blush, it would seem these experiences or feeling states are so diverse that to use the word “love” for all of them is absurd.  Does it make any sense to use the same verb to describe how you feel towards your children as well as your favorite food?  In most cases, those experiences are entirely different; but in truth, there are varieties of love where the feeling someone has for another person isn’t so different from “loving” french fries.  If individuals who suffer from Narcissistic Personality Disorder fall in love, it usually means they “love” how the other person makes them feel about themselves.

When some men and women fall in love, they want to devour the object of their love.  I’m sure you’ve known people like that. You might describe them as “obsessed” or “overly possessive.”  These individuals usually have problems with separation and merger; for them, to be in love means to take possession of somebody else and swallow them whole.  It’s a very primitive type of love, its earliest form in fact, and one I think we all understand on some level.  Ever heard a grownup say about a baby, “Ooh, you are so cute I could eat you all up!”  Nursing infants “love” their mothers in this way, as an object to be eaten.  They don’t see their mothers as separate beings with feelings and desires of their own, at least not at first.

Growing up means coming to recognize separateness; it involves caring about what goes on inside the other person and not simply “loving” him because of the way he makes you feel.  When you’re separate and you love, it means that sometimes, you will care more about her feelings than your own.

Not everyone is capable of this kind of love.

Finding Your Own Way:

Who are the people you love and how do you love them?

Let’s start with your parents (assuming you do love them).  Are you still longing for something they never gave you?  If you came from a very toxic or chaotic family, that longing would be understandable; maybe you really don’t love them in any meaningful way.  But if you do, are you able to see them as completely separate — not Dad who didn’t spend enough time with you, but John who never got to live out that dream of his; not Mom who is always criticizing you, but Mary who regrets never going to college.  Without discounting yourself and how you feel, can you see and care about their pain and disappointments in ways that have nothing to do with your own?

What about your romantic partners?  If you have a number of exes who you once loved and now hate with a passion, maybe your relationships were a type of narcissistic behavior, more like going to Mexico:  you “loved” them for the way they made you feel.

Your children?  How able are you to tolerate their separation from you?  Parents who need to control the life choices of their kids want to feel a certain way about themselves as the parent of those children.  “I want you to become a doctor so that I can feel like a successful parent.”

How different is that really from “loving” french fries?

It is time to change the meaning of the word “love.”

The word is mostly used according to the first definition given in the dictionary: “an intense feeling of deep affection.” In other words, love is what one feels.

After years spent speaking with couples before, during and after marriage; and of talking to parents and children struggling with their relationships, I am convinced of the partiality of the definition. Love should be seen not as a feeling but as an enacted emotion. To love is to feel and act lovingly.

Too many women have told me, bruises visible on their faces, that the husbands who struck them love them. Since they see love as a feeling, the word hides the truth, which is that you do not love someone whom you repeatedly beat and abuse. You may have very strong feelings about them, you may even believe you cannot live without them, but you do not love them.

The first love mentioned in the Bible is not romantic love, but parental love (Genesis 22). When a child is born, the parent’s reaction to this person, who so recently did not exist, is to feel that “I would do anything for her.” In the doing is the love—the feeling is enacted. That is why we often hear the phrase “you don’t act like you love me.” We know in our bones that love is not a feeling alone, but a feeling that flows into the world in action.

Between human beings, love is a relational word. Yes, you can love things that do not love you back—the sky or a mountain or a painting or the game of chess. But the love of other people is directional. There is a lover and a beloved—you don’t just love, but you love at someone. And real love is not only about the feelings of the lover; it is not egotism. It is when one person believes in another person and shows it.

In Fiddler on the Roof, when Tevye asks Golde whether she loves him after a quarter century of marriage, her wry answer is exactly on point:

For twenty-five years I’ve washed your clothes
Cooked your meals, cleaned the house
Given you children, milked your cow
She asks then, “If that’s not love, what is?”

Of course it is possible to perform all sorts of duties for someone and feel little or nothing for them. Love is not about being hired help. Love is not an obligation done with a cold soul. But neither is it a passion that expresses itself in cruelty, or one that does not express itself at all. The feeling must be wedded to the deed.

We would have a healthier conception of love if we understood that love, like parenting or friendship, is a feeling that expresses itself in action. What we really feel is reflected in what we do. The poet’s song is dazzling and the passion powerful, but the deepest beauty of love is how it changes lives.

Contact us at letters@time.com.

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What is true love?

What love feels like

It’s important to recognize the difference between lust and love. While lust is one stage on the way to love, you’re going to need more than physical attraction to make it last. In time, the deeper you get to know them and the more you bond, the more you’ll grow to care for who they really are—and the more they’ll care for who you really are, too.

If anything, risk is what makes it exciting. Love pushes you to open yourself up completely to another person, to really be seen and understood. And in spite of the possibility of heartbreak, we do it anyway. Love is a huge risk, but it seems to be the one we’re all willing to take.

Eventually, as the honeymoon phase dissipates and you and your partner really begin to see who the other is, there’s a sense of calm familiarity. You feel grounded and content in their presence. This is partly due to the hormones released during the attachment phase that facilitate bonding, oxytocin and vasopressin1.

Love doesn’t always have «good reasons,» which is where the idea of unconditional love comes from. As holistic psychiatrist Ellen Vora, Ph.D., describes to mbg, it almost feels as though «there’s a divine force telling me I’m on the right path. It doesn’t always feel easy or even necessarily positive, but it always feels like I’m right where I need to be.»

Before getting to the wholehearted stage, couples have to go through disillusionment (the end of the honeymoon phase when faults start showing up) and ultimately, a decision about whether to stay together. There’s really no way around it. «Loving is realizing all the ways you’re not perfect together and making it work anyway,» Carroll says.

Once you’ve accepted those things about your partner that aren’t exactly your favorite—congratulations!—you’ve actively decided your love for them is more important. Long-term love is very much a choice. Carroll notes, «I think there’s more than one right person—I think you can make a choice to spend your life with someone.»

Despite the risk and any other difficulties, there’s a deep knowing that you want this person in your life, and trust they’ll be around for the long haul. And building this trust is no easy feat, according to Carroll, who notes it’s a process that takes time.

Carroll explains that developing true love takes going through rough seasons and finding out all the ways you’re not compatible. But the more your relationship is put to the test, the stronger you become as a pair. Of course, every relationship still takes effort, but once you reach wholehearted love, you’ve really sharpened your communication and conflict-resolution skills.

Going back to the idea of being a complete individual with and without a partner, there’s the part of you that knows you would be OK without your great love. But with that said, you know this isn’t what you want because you simply, genuinely love having this person in your life.

How long does it take to fall in love?

How do I tell someone I love them?

What does love feel like?

There is nothing that feels quite the same as being in love.

For centuries, poets have dedicated their creative lives towards trying to explain what being in love feels like, and while that means we as a people have thousands of wonderfully beautiful poems, what we don’t have is a crystal clear explanation about what it is like to be in love.

While I don’t believe we will all ever come to an agreement about what makes the perfection description for how being in love feels, we can learn a lot about other people when we ask them their opinion on the subject.

And if you ask men what they think being in love feels like, chances are they’ll each have their own explanation.

For the romantics of the world, being in love is puppies and candies and roses. For the practical people, it’s meeting someone who shares your interests and your plans for the future.

When you’re talking to a man and trying to figure out just what kind of guy he is, you can’t go wrong asking him to tell you his personal definition of love and what it feels like for him.

RELATED: 11 Men Share The Moment They Knew It Was True Love

One Redditor recently discovered this to be true when they asked the guys on the Ask Man subreddit, «What should ‘being in love’ make you feel?»

So if you want to know what love feels like, check out what 15 men had to say and you’ll see exactly what I mean …

1. You don’t need rose-colored glasses.

«When all the new wears off, you don’t have butterflies every time they call or text or you know you’re going to see them, you’re not getting all giddy about ‘firsts’ in your relationship, you’re no longer both on your best behavior, you can see their faults and let them see yours, you’ve survived a few disagreements, you’re not intimate every time you catch some alone time …

And after all that, they’re still your favorite person. You still do things for each other, for the simple joy of making them happy. The absence of the rose-colored glasses of new lust hasn’t been replaced with resentment, it has evolved into comfort, stability, and security with that person.»

2. It should feel happy and safe.

«Happy and safer than you’ve felt before. And a strong urge to ensure the other feels the same.»

3. It can feel like food poisoning.

«For me, love is like a nauseating stomach feel where you’re super hungry but want to throw up at the sight of food, or like smelling liquor during a terrible hangover.»

4. It goes deep.

«I guess everyone is different, but for me, love is feeling like you really know someone and have a depth of affection that goes deeper than with anyone else, along with a bond of companionship and physical attraction.

When I don’t know a woman very well but she feels really exciting and like the most important person on earth, that’s really just lust and infatuation in my experience.

I don’t think I could really love someone with having spent a lot of time with them and gone through shared experiences.»

RELATED: 6 Ways Infatuation Is Different From Real Love (And How To Make Sure You Always Know The Difference)

5. It’s indescribable!

«It’s very hard to put into words how I feel about her but I feel a connection that I can’t describe. It’s a connection that makes me know exactly what she’s feeling at any given second and I know she knows how I feel.

I would sacrifice everything for her and I know she feels the same way. Love just can’t really be described, but I know I’m in it.»

6. Love feels like home.

«Everyone saying ‘Happy,’ ‘Euphoria,’ ‘Excited’ … is, in my opinion, wrong, very wrong. True love feels comfortable, it feels right, the person feels like home.»

7. Being in love makes you listen.

«When you listen to her over your mother and you don’t feel guilty about it later.»

8. There are different stages.

«There are a few different stages. Initial attraction, obsession and seeing her as perfect, then slowly seeing the real person and the feelings left over are true love or nothing.»

RELATED: If You Haven’t Experienced These 7 Things It Isn’t Really Love — Yet

9. It’s pure joy.

«Whoopi Goldberg as Guinan in ‘Star Trek Generations’ described it (well, something else relative to the movie but it still can apply here) well I thought: ‘It was like being inside joy, as if joy was something tangible and you could wrap yourself up in it like a blanket … and never in my entire life have I ever been as content.'»

10. Love isn’t a feeling, per se.

«Okay so some people may disagree with me, but I do not believe that love is a single feeling that you hold on to. Love is a bond and a connection that can have so many different feelings, mostly good ones, sometimes bad ones, sometimes no feelings. The important thing is that forgiveness and respect rule your relationship from both sides.

You should feel needed and wanted, and so should they. Not at all times, you’re allowed to have rough spots. In fact, having a level of healthy discourse is a good reminder that you both are still human beings trying their best.

A lot of relationships and marriages get stale when one partner finally just decides that they are going to roll over for good and let the other do everything.»

11. It’s a habit.

«Love is a habit. Not an emotion. Your emotions change all the time. There will be days when you don’t want to be married. That’s where the habit fits in.»

12. Being in love is a conscious choice.

«Love is where you want the absolute best for someone and will do anything for them. Anything other than those feelings are not love but rather attachment or infatuation. Love is intentional — it does not just happen to you!»

13. Love unconsciously rearranges your priorities.

«Love for me meant subconsciously putting her needs before mine and deriving joy from her smile.»

14. It’s about gratitude.

«Words don’t do it justice, and it’s sort of a ‘explain salt to somebody who hasn’t tasted it’ paradigm. Love felt safe. A warmth. A gratitude that that person, and not just any person, was there beside you despite all the chaos of the universe and the world. The person who cared to understand who you were and how you ticked. Love is being each others’ entire world, where you wait up for the other and can’t imagine parting. There’s a gentleness in your interaction, a joy of being around them.

Love is being a calm voice during a panic attack and the big spoon after a bad day. Love is gathering wood, lighting a fire, and contemplating the immensity of space and the improbability of your union, considering your utter smallness but being okay because you’re small together. Love is a steady voice and a warm embrace during a bad trip when your soul’s raw and exposed, when everything immutable and essential gets reduced to meaningless cliche.

Love is waking up and seeing her little body and curly hair taking up 80 percent of the bed, pushing your considerably larger frame to the brink, seeing her toothy smile and her intensely colored eyes almost disappearing into themselves as the day’s prospects excite her. Love was the time I spent sharing my soul.»

15. It’s as simple as knowing you don’t want anyone else.

«When a more attractive woman hits on you but you love your girl more so you don’t consider it.»

RELATED: Why Being In Love Is The Best Feeling In The World

Rebecca Jane Stokes is a writer living in Brooklyn, New York with her cat, Batman. For more of her work, check out her Tumblr.

Love is a set of emotions and behaviors characterized by intimacy, passion, and commitment. It involves care, closeness, protectiveness, attraction, affection, and trust. Love can vary in intensity and can change over time. It is associated with a range of positive emotions, including happiness, excitement, life satisfaction, and euphoria, but it can also result in negative emotions such as jealousy and stress.

When it comes to love, some people would say it is one of the most important human emotions. Yet despite being one of the most studied behaviors, it is still the least understood. For example, researchers debate whether love is a biological or cultural phenomenon.

Love is most likely influenced by both biology and culture. Although hormones and biology are important, the way we express and experience love is also influenced by our personal conceptions of love.

How Do You Know?

What are some of the signs of love? Researchers have made distinctions between feelings of liking and loving another person.

Zick Rubin’s Scales of Liking and Loving

According to psychologist Zick Rubin, romantic love is made up of three elements:

• Attachment: Needing to be with another person and desiring physical contact and approval
• Caring: Valuing the other person’s happiness and needs as much as your own
• Intimacy: Sharing private thoughts, feelings, and desires with the other person

Based on this view of romantic love, Rubin developed two questionnaires to measure these variables, known as Rubin’s Scales of Liking and Loving. Whereas people tend to view people they like as pleasant, love is marked by being devoted, possessive, and confiding in one another. 

Types of Love

Not all forms of love are the same, and psychologists have identified a number of different types of love that people may experience. These types of love include:

• Friendship: This type of love involves liking someone and sharing a certain degree of intimacy.
• Infatuation: This is a form of love that often involves intense feelings of attraction without a sense of commitment; it often takes place early in a relationship and may deepen into a more lasting love.
• Passionate love: This type of love is marked by intense feelings of longing and attraction; it often involves an idealization of the other person and a need to maintain constant physical closeness.
• Compassionate/companionate love: This form of love is marked by trust, affection, intimacy, and commitment.
• Unrequited love: This form of love happens when one person loves another who does not return those feelings.

Robert Sternberg’s Triangular Theory of Love

Specifically, psychologist Robert Sternberg developed his well-regarded triangular theory of love in the early 1980s. Much research has built upon his work and demonstrated its universality across cultures.

Sternberg broke love into three components—intimacy, passion, and commitment—that interact to produce seven types of love.

Is Love Biological or Cultural?

Some researchers suggest that love is a basic human emotion just like happiness or anger, while others believe that it is a cultural phenomenon that arises partly due to social pressures and expectations. 

Research has found that romantic love exists in all cultures, which suggests that love has a strong biological component. It is a part of human nature to seek out and find love. However, culture can significantly affect how individuals think about, experience, and display romantic love.

How to Practice Love

There is no single way to practice love. Every relationship is unique, and each person brings their own history and needs. Some things that you can do to show love to the people you care about include:

• Be willing to be vulnerable.
• Be willing to forgive.
• Do your best, and be willing to apologize when you make mistakes.
• Let them know that you care.
• Listen to what they have to say.
• Prioritize spending time with the other person.
• Reciprocate loving gestures and acts of kindness.
• Recognize and acknowledge their good qualities.
• Share things about yourself.
• Show affection.
• Make it unconditional.

Impact of Love

Love, attachment, and affection have an important impact on well-being and quality of life. Loving relationships have been linked to:

• Lower risk of heart disease
• Decreased risk of dying after a heart attack
• Better health habits
• Increased longevity
• Lower stress levels
• Less depression
• Lower risk of diabetes

Tips for Cultivating Love

Lasting relationships are marked by deep levels of trust, commitment, and intimacy. Some things that you can do to help cultivate loving relationships include:

• Try loving-kindness meditation. Loving-kindness meditation (LKM) is a technique often used to promote self-acceptance and reduce stress, but it has also been shown to promote a variety of positive emotions and improve interpersonal relationships. LKM involves meditating while thinking about a person you love or care about, concentrating on warm feelings and your desire for their well-being and happiness.
• Communicate. Everyone’s needs are different. The best way to ensure that your needs and your loved one’s needs are met is to talk about them. Helping another person feel loved involves communicating that love to them through words and deeds. Some ways to do this include showing that you care, making them feel special, telling them they are loved, and doing things for them.
• Tackle conflict in a healthy way. Never arguing is not necessarily a sign of a healthy relationship—more often than not, it means that people are avoiding an issue rather than discussing it. Rather than avoid conflict, focus on hashing out issues in ways that are healthy in order to move a relationship forward in a positive way. 

Potential Pitfalls

As Shakespeare said, the course of love never did run smooth. No relationship is perfect, so there will always be problems, conflicts, misunderstandings, and disappointments that can lead to distress or heartbreak.

So while love is associated with a host of positive emotions, it can also be accompanied by a number of negative feelings as well. Some of the potential pitfalls of experiencing love include:

• Anxiety
• Depression
• Increased stress
• Jealousy
• Obsessiveness
• Possessiveness
• Sadness

While people are bound to experience some negative emotions associated with love, it can become problematic if those negative feelings outweigh the positive or if they start to interfere with either person’s ability to function normally. Relationship counseling can be helpful in situations where couples need help coping with miscommunication, stress, or emotional issues.

History of Love

Only fairly recently has love become the subject of science. In the past, the study of love was left to «the creative writer to depict for us the necessary conditions for loving,» according to Sigmund Freud. «In consequence, it becomes inevitable that science should concern herself with the same materials whose treatment by artists has given enjoyment to mankind for thousands of years,» he added.

Research on love has grown tremendously since Freud’s remarks. But early explorations into the nature and reasons for love drew considerable criticism. During the 1970s, U.S. Senator William Proxmire railed against researchers who were studying love and derided the work as a waste of taxpayer dollars.

Despite early resistance, research has revealed the importance of love in both child development and adult health.

Love. It’s the basis of many novels, films, and songs. It can make us crazy, in both good ways and bad.

We grow up with ideas of love from the films we watch, and as enjoyable as romantic movies are, they aren’t always the most realist.

So for many of us, knowing what real love feels like is a complete mystery.

We spend a good portion of our lives searching for love, hearing about love, seeing love around us, and finally wondering whether we are in love when we are in a relationship.

Sometimes we think we’re in love…and then once the relationship ends we doubt whether it was ever even love in the first place. It can be hard to see the difference between infatuation, or lust, and love.

For something which is so ingrained in our lives, it’s also one of the least understood feelings.

There are plenty of scientific explanations for some of the emotions we feel when we’re in love, but not many that can actually explain the truth depth of this feeling.

In this article we’ll look at the different signs that signal what love feels like, and we’ll also explore the difference between love and lust.

What does love feel like? 27 signs to look out for

1) They feel like home

Home can be much more than just a physical place, you can feel it in people too. When you are really in love, that person can make you feel a number of emotions, such as:

• Safe
• Comfortable when around them
• Secure in your relationship
• Content and relaxed

When we think of a happy home, it includes all those feelings, because after all, home is where the heart is.

No matter where you go in the world, home will always be the place you look forward to returning to, and the same goes for someone who you are in love with.

Being in love will make you naturally more attached to that person, so you can often find yourself looking for support and reassurance from them.

2) You feel an intense connection

When in love, you often feel like your life, emotions, and dreams are entwined. You feel like you know and understand that person, and the empathy you feel towards them is far greater than to those who you don’t love.

As described by MBGRelationships:

“An emotional connection is a feeling of alignment and intimacy between two people that goes beyond just physical attraction, having fun together, surface-level conversations, or even intellectual similarities. Instead, it feels like you’re connecting on a deeper soul level—and feel secure connecting that deeply.”

This is one of the reasons why we give second (and third, fourth and fifth) chances to the ones we love.

We feel something deep inside us which can sometimes be so confusing and strong, as it rises above any superficial feelings.

3) Love brings out this instinct in men

Does your man protect you? Not just from physical harm, but does he make sure you’re okay when anything negative arises?

This is a definite sign of love.

There’s actually a fascinating new concept in relationship psychology that’s generating a lot of buzz at the moment. It goes to the heart of the riddle about why men fall in love—and who they fall in love with.

The theory claims that men want to feel like a hero. That they want to step up to the plate for the woman in their lives and protect her.

This is deeply rooted in male biology.

People are calling it the hero instinct. We wrote a detailed primer about the concept which you can read here.

If you can make your guy feel like a hero, it unleashes his protective instincts and the most noble aspect of his masculinity. Most importantly, it will unleash his deepest feelings of attraction towards you.

Because a man wants to see himself as a protector. As someone a woman genuinely wants and needs to have around. Not as an accessory, ‘best friend’, or ‘partner in crime’.

I know this might sound a bit silly. In this day and age, women don’t need someone to rescue them. They don’t need a ‘hero’ in their lives.

And I couldn’t agree more.

But here’s the ironic truth. Men do still need to be a hero. Because it’s built into our DNA to seek out relationships that allow us to feel like one.

If you would like to learn more about the hero instinct, check out this free online video by the relationship psychologist who coined the term.

Some ideas are game-changers. And for relationships, I think this is one of them.

Here’s a link to the video again.

4) You can’t stand the thought of them being hurt

When you truly love someone, just the very idea of them being hurt, physically or emotionally, makes you feel upset and stressed.

Whilst your happiness shouldn’t depend solely on them, you can’t help but feel your emotions are linked to each other. If they experience hardships, you feel as though it’s happening to you as well.

And, the idea of you hurting them can be especially upsetting. You know you wouldn’t be able to live with the guilt and hurt, so even picturing a situation where you hurt them can feel like you’re in a bad dream.

5) You feel a rollercoaster of emotions

The cliche that you feel euphoria, happiness and overwhelming joy can be true when you’re in love, but in reality you’ll probably experience a mix of emotions.

You might feel vulnerable, scared or confused, especially if you’ve been hurt in the past or have never been in love before.

Love has the ability to make you feel on top of the world, but it can also feel like you’re losing control to something bigger than yourself.

Suddenly, you become aware that if you ever lose that person, your life might change significantly, so it’s natural to feel a roller coaster of feelings and emotions.

6) You miss them

When you’re in love, you just can’t get enough of them. Even after years of being together, their absence leaves you feeling like a part of you is missing.

It’s healthy to spend time apart and have personal time, but when you’re in love, you won’t be able to help looking forward to seeing them again.

Tiffany Henson explains the science behind missing someone for Odyssey:

“If your body is used to producing all of those chemicals, and processing them quickly, can you imagine what happens when you leave the person that causes it? In short, withdrawal happens. Your body stops producing an abundance of serotonin, oxytocin, etc.”

The good news is, there’s nothing you can do about it because it’s all chemical. The bad news is that it can make you feel miserable.

But this is also an opportunity…

The truth is, most of us overlook an incredibly important element in our lives:

The relationship we have with ourselves. 

I learnt about this from the shaman Rudá Iandê. In his genuine, free video on cultivating healthy relationships, he gives you the tools to plant yourself at the center of your world.

He covers some of the major mistakes most of us make in our relationships, such as codependency habits and unhealthy expectations. Mistakes most of us make without even realizing it. 

So why am I recommending Rudá’s life-changing advice? 

Well, he uses techniques derived from ancient shamanic teachings, but he puts his own modern-day twist on them. He may be a shaman, but his experiences in love weren’t much different to yours and mine. 

Until he found a way to overcome these common issues. And that’s what he wants to share with you. 

So if you’re ready to make that change today and cultivate healthy, loving relationships, relationships you know you deserve, check out his simple, genuine advice. Click here to watch the free video.

7) You happily prioritize them in your life

Prioritizing someone in your life is a big step to take. There’s a lot of people that we meet in our lives who don’t always deserve to be a priority, so if you start making room for someone in your life, it’s because you have strong feelings for them.

Prioritizing someone can mean things like:

• Putting their happiness and welfare above your own
• Making time for them even if you’re busy
• Making sacrifices to help them when they need it
• Always being considerate of their needs and feelings

When we think of the unconditional love a mother has for her children, she will always make them her priority. The same goes for romantic love, because ultimately you want what’s best for that special person.

You dream of a future with them

When you like someone, it’s easy and comfortable to make short term plans, but being in love is a whole different ball game.

Even if you don’t want to, you can’t help but daydream of what a future together would look like. Let’s face it, when you’re head over heels in love, you can’t even imagine being with someone else.

Whether it makes you happy and excited, or uncomfortable and nervous, planning a future with someone is a sure sign that you’re in love.

If you want to have a future with your partner, I suggest watching Justin Brown’s video below on the three key factors to successful relationships.

9) You tend to focus on their positives and overlook their flaws

We all have flaws, but being in love can sometimes make us downplay their shortcomings and focus only on their good qualities.

The popular saying ‘love is blind’ may be overused in films and songs, but it definitely has an element of truth to it.

As Aaron Ben-Zeév writes for Psychology Today:

“Lovers do not see clearly, if at all, their beloved’s negative traits and tend to create an idealized image of the beloved. One reason for idealizing the beloved is that we tend to evaluate positively that which we desire. Our inclination toward something often leads to its positive evaluation.”

But that’s not to say we won’t ever notice their flaws. As time goes on, this illusion of perfection can fade away and their flaws become more noticeable.

When you’re in true love though, you will notice and accept these small flaws and continue to focus on the positives.

10) You feel safe and secure around them

In life, we all crave (and need) certain things, like being safe, secure and stable with another person.

When you’re in love, you should feel safe around that person, both emotionally and physically.

You should feel secure enough to speak your mind, be yourself and not feel judged by that person.

John Amodeo ,a writer for PsychCentral, says, “feeling emotionally safe means feeling internally relaxed with a person. We feel free to let down our guard and show our authentic self, including our hurts, fears, and longings.”

11) You feel ‘caught up’ in love

Feeling caught up, or in other words, consumed, is a typical feeling when you’re in love.

Taking into account the previous nine points, it’s an incredibly large amount of feelings, emotions and expectations to go through, and a lot of it is out of your control.

You might find yourself feeling overwhelmed, even obsessed, when all you think about is that person.

This is normal, and as Deborah Khoshaba explains it for Psychology Today:

“Your new love life may consume your energy, focus, and time to the point where everything else going on in your life may feel like a rude intrusion. You can’t stop thinking about your lover.”

This can fade the longer a relationship lasts, but it when you’re in love, that person’s role in your life will continue to be very important to your emotional wellbeing.

So rather than feel stressed by these feelings, it’s best to accept and adapt around them. And remember, it gets easier with time.

12) Love feels unique to every one

As said above, love means different things to different people. Therefore, we also experience it and feel it in unique ways.

Some people say love is about the feeling of excitement and passion when you’re with your partner.

Someone else will say it’s about the unquestioned trust, honesty, and comfort that comes with having a long-term relationship.

13) When we talk about actual feelings, it could be several

There isn’t a singular emotion of love.

For example, some people will describe love as intense and passionate, yet others describe it as peaceful and comfortable.

In other words, love can feel like several different emotions, even at once.

14) It usually begins as an intense feeling of joy

When you initially fall in love, most people are very happy and passionate.

Why?

Because according to neuroscientist Loretta G. Breuning:

“Love stimulates all of your happy chemicals at once. That’s why it feels so good.”

Yep, in the brain, love is a cocktail of feel-good chemicals: dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, endorphin.

At least that occurs initially.

“But our brain evolved to motivate reproduction, not to make you feel good all the time. That’s why the good feeling doesn’t last.”

So to understand how love feels, let’s go through each chemical in the brain it stimulates and how it will make you feel:

Recommended reading: What are the 4 bases of love? Here’s everything you need to know

15) Dopamine is released in the brain

Dopamine is a brain chemical that it released to alert us that our needs are about to be met.

When a baby hears his/her Mother’s footsteps, dopamine is released through the brain.

When you finally kiss that girl or guy you’ve been chasing, dopamine is activated.

When you believe you’ve finally found “the one” dopamine is activated in droves.

Dopamine is basically responsible for the head-over-heels, elated part of love.

According to University Health News, dopamine is associated with feelings of euphoria, bliss, motivation, and concentration.

So if you’ve found your love, you might feel extremely happy and blessed to be with them. You’ll also be motivated to keep the bond alive.

Also, it’s important to note that phenylethylamine or PEA is a chemical in the brain that causes the release of dopamine.

This chemical is also released when you begin falling in love in the early stages. It is a stimulant and can give you a pounding heart and sweaty palms.

Also, these chemicals (dopamine and PEA) can make you feel great in the early stages of love, but according to Thought Co, they can also make you feel anxious and obsessive.

In short:

Dopamine is responsible for the initial elated part of love and can make you feel euphoria and bliss when you’re with your lover, a pounding heart, sweaty palms, and even obsessiveness and anxiety.

16) Oxytocin is released in the brain

This is a brain chemical that is stimulated by touch and trust, according to Psychology Today. This chemical can erupt from holding hands, hugging and being comforted to orgasm.

When you’re in a loving relationship, oxytocin builds up a circuit, so it’s easily triggered.

For example, an elderly couple will experience a flood of oxytocin when they hold hands.

For a lot of people, love is about trust and comfort, so oxytocin is certainly a big factor in producing those feel-good feelings.

Funny enough, oxytocin is also called “the cuddle hormone”. This chemical is also released in droves when a Mother is in labor and breastfeeding.

What does oxytocin feel like?

Perhaps the best feeling to describe this brain chemical, according to Science Daily, is feeling warm and fuzzy.

Feeling warm, fuzzy and comforted is also a common way people describe being in love.

In short:

Oxytocin is released mostly through touch and gives us the warm, fuzzy feeling of comfort and trust that likely exists throughout the whole duration of a relationship.

17) Serotonin is released in the brain

In a relationship, serotonin is supposedly released by the pride of associating with a person of a certain stature.

It may seem a little “fake,” but throughout the animal kingdom higher status social groups have more reproductive success.

Your brain rewards you with the feel-good chemical serotonin when you seek status.

However, keep in mind that human beings are complex animals and status can be seen in many different ways.

It could be money, success, kindness, authenticity, social skill, physical fitness, or a whole host of reasons.

And while you may not want to believe it, the fact of the matter is this:

When you receive affection from an individual that is considered “desirable” serotonin will be triggered in the brain.

And when your partner receives admiration from others, that will trigger serotonin, too.

Relying on serotonin release can also trigger dependence on another person, as well.

How does serotonin feel? Great!

In fact, a lot of antidepressants these days work on increasing serotonin in the brain.

Having high levels of serotonin are associated with feeling positive, happy, confident and flexible.

Low levels of serotonin can have you feeling negative, worried or irritable.

Being involved in a happy and stable relationship where you desire being with your partner will contribute to your serotonin level throughout your relationship.

However, keep in mind that serotonin levels are influenced by many different things that do not include your relationship.

In short: 

Serotonin is released when we’re happy, stable and positive about our relationship, and gives us that stable and solid-state. Serotonin may also be responsible for obsessiveness and anxiety in a relationship.

18) Endorphins is released in the brain

We all know endorphins give you a high. But did you also know that it is stimulated from physical pain?

Endorphins play a key role in long-term relationships. They are released during physical contact and sex.

Interestingly, according to Bustle, endorphins become more prominent around 18 months to 4 years into a relationship.

Why?

Because this is the stage where the brain stops relying on love stimulants like dopamine, and instead rely on chemicals oxytocin and endorphins for relationship pleasure.

According to Mind Health, the brain chemical oxytocin, serotonin, and endorphins are crucial to help two people stay connected.

Why?

Because endorphins, oxytocin, and serotonin are associated with feelings of attachment and comfort.

In short:

Endorphins calm anxiety, relieve pain and reduce stress. This is why you may feel calmed and comforted by the presence of your partner.

To find out if you’re in love, check out these signs that you may be experiencing:

19) You can’t keep your eyes off them

Whether there’s a handful of people or hundreds of people, it doesn’t matter, you can’t keep your eyes off of your love.

You have eyes only for them and you want to see more of them. You don’t just see the beauty on the outside, you see what makes them beautiful inside too.

According to Jack Schafer Ph.D. in Psychology Today, people look at people they like and avoid people they don’t like.

He says that elevated oxytocin levels increase mutual eye gaze and provide a sense of wellbeing and increased mutual attraction.

Related: The strangest thing men desire (And how it can make him crazy for you)1

20) You feel like you are floating

If you are in love, you’ll go through life feeling like your feet never touch the ground.

Some say you’ll feel like you are high or in a dream – whatever you call it, you’ll feel it as you move through your day. It will feel amazing.

A study from the Kindsey Institute discovered that the brain of a person falling in love looks the same as the brain of a person who has taken cocaine. This is thanks to dopamine.

21) It hurts when you fight

If your partner hurts your feelings, it will cut like a knife.

Everything they say impacts you. If you’ve been hurt, you’ll feel like that disappointment will never end. That’s love. You just want everything to be good all the time.

According to Live Science, “people in love regularly exhibit signs of emotional dependency on their relationship, including possessiveness, jealousy, fear of rejection, and separation anxiety.

22) You can’t focus

Love can make you feel off your game and it can be hard to focus on the things you need to do.

Whether you are at work or you are on the beach, if you are in love, you’ll have a hard time listening to others, getting things done, and following a regular schedule.

You’ll be counting the minutes until you are together again.

23) You’re always thinking about them

Love not only blinds you to the rest of the world, it also fills your brain with lots of amazing thoughts and keeps you from getting to the thing that need to be done. You are always thinking about your love.

In the book “The Anatomy of Love,” by biological anthropologist Helen Fisher, she says that “thoughts of the ‘love object’ begin to invade your mind. …You wonder what your beloved would think of the book you are reading, the movie you just saw, or the problem you are facing at the office.”

24) You want nothing but the best for them

Love is a funny thing.

If you love someone, you want amazing things for them. If you need a surefire way to tell if you are in love, ask yourself if you’d be happy for them if they decided to be with someone else.

Sure, you’d be sad to lose them but when you love someone, you know you need to let them go if they aren’t happy with you.

In fact, research has suggested that “compassionate love” can be one of the biggest signs of a healthy relationship. Compassionate love refers to love that “centers on the good of the other”.

Related: The Hero Instinct: How Can You Trigger It In Your Man?

25) You are willing to try new things

Love makes you do all kinds of crazy things, but it also makes you more open to the things you were keeping at bay before.

You might find yourself skydiving or trying new food. There’s no rhyme or reason to your decision-making when you are in love.

In fact, a study suggested that people who claimed that they were in love had varied interests and personality traits after those relationships. This is because they were open to trying new things with their partner.

26) You feel on edge

When your brain is filled with a distraction from love you can feel on edge because you can’t concentrate.

This will not only be difficult to manage the day-to-day of your life, but you might find yourself getting really frustrated with your lack of focus. That’s what love does to you.

Yep, falling in love can cause you to get the jitters! While it’s certainly true that love can make you feel great in the early stages of love, but according to Thought Co, they can also make you feel anxious and obsessive.

27) You feel connected to them.

Love means you can sit in silence and not have to fill up every minute of the day with conversation or activity. When you are in love, you appreciate one another’s company and don’t need more than just to be together.

According to Live Science, when you’re in love, you begin to think your beloved is unique. This belief is also coupled with an inability to feel a romantic passion for anyone else.

If your love isn’t mutual? Here’s what to do…

Nothing sucks more than unrequited love. It feels like all of your energy and potential have been snuffed out. It’s tempting to wallow in your sorrow and give up on them.

However, you should fight this instinct and instead remind yourself that your love is born from a pure and special place. And if the person is worth fighting for… then fight for them.

Especially for women, if he doesn’t feel the same way or is acting lukewarm towards you, then you must get inside his head and understand why.

Because if you love them, it’s up to you to dig a bit deeper and figure out why he’s hesitant to return serve.

In my experience, the missing link in any relationship is never sex, communication or a lack of romantic dates. All these things are important, but they are rarely deal breakers when it comes to the success of a relationship.

The missing link is this:

You actually have to understand what your guy needs from a relationship.

Men need this one thing

James Bauer is one of the world’s leading relationship experts.

In his new video, he reveals a new concept which brilliantly explains what really drives men in relationships. He calls it the hero instinct. I talked about this concept above.

Simply put, men want to be your hero. Not necessarily an action hero like Thor, but he does want to step up to the plate for the woman in his life and be appreciated for his efforts.

The hero instinct is probably the best kept secret in relationship psychology. And I think it holds the key to a man’s love and devotion for life.

You can watch the video here.

My friend and Hack Spirit writer Pearl Nash was the person who first introduced the hero instinct to me. Since then I’ve written extensively about the concept on Hack Spirit.

For many women, learning about the hero instinct was their “aha moment”. It was for Pearl Nash. You can read her personal story here about how triggering the hero instinct helped her turn around a lifetime of relationship failure.

Here’s a link to James Bauer’s free video again.

So, what is love?

According to ancient Greeks, love is “the madness of the gods.”

Western psychologists define it as an “emotional union” with another person.

But to be honest, ask anyone and they’ll probably give you a different definition of what love means.

So what is love?

Well, for this we can turn to Biological Anthropologist Helen Fisher. She says there are three basic brain systems that evolved for relationships and reproduction:

1) Sex drive: Sexual desire evolved to seek mating partners. Sexual attraction doesn’t necessarily have to be focused on one individual. It can be focused on many individuals at the same time.

2) Romantic attraction: This is a romantic attraction focused on one person. You could say it’s “deeper” than sex drive. This type of thinking has evolved to enable you to focus on one individual to build a relationship with them.

3) Attachment, or creating a deep connection with one partner: This feeling of deep union evolved so that you can be with someone long enough to raise a single child through infancy together.

According to Fisher, these three brain systems work together to create many different forms of love.

Interestingly, Fisher’s studies suggest that “attraction love” tends to last from 6 months to 2 years before it turns into “attachment love”.

But if you’re looking for a more simple definition of love, you can’t go past Google’s definition:

“An intense feeling of deep affection.”

Simple, but sounds about right.

In conclusion

Love is a complex emotion that triggers different chemicals in the brain at different stages in the relationship.

Dopamine is associated with the beginning of the relationship, where the relationship is passionate, fun and in its early stages.

From there, the brain chemical oxytocin, serotonin, and endorphins are crucial to helping two people stay connected as they are associated with feelings of attachment and comfort.

You may also like reading:

• The strangest thing men desire (And how it can make him crazy for you)
• The Hero Instinct: How Can You Trigger It In Your Man?
• What makes an average guy instantly become “hot”?

Is the definition of love about liking or feeling romantically or sexually attracted to another person? Here’s the true meaning of love and what it really is outside its dictionary definition.

Love is a tough word to explain, and the meaning of love? That just gets more complex and simple at the same time!

In the words of Foreigner back in 1984 *ask your parents*, “I want to know what love is, I want you to show me.” Yes, a band of men with very bad hair sang those exact words. Even now, all these years later, we’re still asking ourselves what the true definition of love is.

What does it actually look and feel like? Yes, there is a definition of love in the dictionary. If you’re going to look it up, love is defined as “a strong feeling of affection and concern toward another person, as that arising from kinship or close friendship” or that it is “a strong, usually passionate, affection of one person for another, based in part on sexual attraction.” But these are not really enough to explain the overwhelming flood of emotions that we feel, is it?

What is the true meaning of love? And why does everyone define it differently? Honestly though, the reason? Love can be defined in many ways because it’s different for every single person who experiences it. 

[Read: Is it love? How to recognize true love when it comes your way]

What is the true meaning of love, and what does love mean?

Explaining love is like trying to explain why water is wet – it just is!

There are various kinds of love – romantic love which usually includes an intense feeling of deep affection and involves intimacy, lust, and sexual attraction; family love which arises from kinship and parental love; friendship love which is a platonic love felt by one person for another; and love you have for the things you do.

Every single type and feeling of love is valid and real for you. As they say, love is love.

It’s entirely possible that you experience and define love in a different way from someone else in your life. We’re all unique, and that means we recognize, experience, and feel love and affection for another person, be it from the same or opposite sex, in slightly different ways too.

[Read: 23 facts about love that will definitely blow your mind]

However, there is some common ground at least. The true meaning of love is quite blurry, but many people put it down as:

1. The ability to understand and accept another person as they are, completely.

2. Wanting the very best for a person and helping them to be the best version of themselves they can be.

3. If it came down to it, you’d sacrifice your own happiness for theirs.

4. Wanting to build a future with that person. 

5. Seeing the good and bad parts of someone and loving them anyway.

6. A deep connection and a feeling of being whole. 

[Read: 15 traits of selfless love that sets it apart from selfish love]

As you can see, the true meaning of love is wide-ranging, and you might have a different idea of what it is to you.

For most people, however, the above statements ring true. You want the best for that person and hate to see them struggling or suffering, and you’d sacrifice your own happiness to ensure that they’re smiling.  

Love in all its types has these definitions, whether we’re talking about family, friends, or romantic love. When people fall in love with a person or thing, we want it in our lives and become attached to it, to the point where being without it is painful and impossible to endure.

[Read: What is true love? The signs of love to know if your love is real]

What does love feel like? Is it even real?

Is love real? Yes. However, as mentioned, love is different for everyone. It’s possible that you’ve never experienced that completely “sweep you off your feet” type of love. You might never, or it might be just around the corner, but you will experience your own version of love in a way that’s right for you. 

The true meaning of love isn’t about Hollywood depictions. It might not come into your life, knock you down to the ground, and swing you around several times.

Maybe it’s more of a calm and gentle feeling for you, but it doesn’t mean it’s any less worthwhile or any less meaningful. 

What does love feel like? Again, it depends on the person! For some, love feels comfortable and warm. It’s like going home, it feels safe. However, for others, love can be dramatic, overwhelming, and at times leave you unable to breathe.

This latter type of love can potentially lead to toxicity, especially if such strong and passionate emotions aren’t reciprocated. Thus, love can have both positive and negative effects as different people have different ways of how they practice love.

[Read: The signs you could be wasting your time in a one-sided relationship]

Can you see there are different definitions of love, depending upon the circumstances?

The true definition of love is when two people are aligned. That’s when the rollercoaster of emotions stops, and everything becomes still and cozy. When that happens, many people falsely believe that they’re falling out of love or that passion and deep affection have left. That’s Hollywood’s fault.

True love doesn’t have us feeling sick every day, wondering what’s going to happen. It doesn’t mean constant arguments and screaming at each other. It’s not about being unable to eat over the long term because you’ve always got butterflies. 

We’re told that we should always go for butterflies because that means it’s special, but those butterflies don’t last beyond the infatuation stage.

When love takes over, the butterflies actually feel like their work is done. That’s probably a very good true definition of love – when the butterflies settle down, and contentment takes over.

[Read: Infatuation vs love and how you can tell the difference]

Love feels comfortable, but it also feels like you would do anything to protect that person. In many ways, that’s what it means to love someone.

It means that you would sacrifice yourself in some way to ensure their happiness, health, and safety. It means that while you don’t stop doing the things you enjoy or dedicate your entire life to that person, you want them to become the very best version of themselves that they can be.

It’s easy to be taken over by love, allowing it to swallow you whole and put your own wants and needs to one side.

But it’s important to remember that you’re just as important as the person you love. If it is not an unrequited love situation and the love is reciprocal, they’ll probably be doing all they can to ensure your needs are met anyway— loyalty, attention, security, and all the other good words related to love that you could possibly think of. Keep that balance – you’re just as important! [Read: What you should know before your first relationship to love way better]

The strongest signs that define the meaning of love in a relationship

Now we’ve debated what the true meaning of love is and know that it’s a very blurry subject to pinpoint. How can you tell that you’re actually in love?

There’s no firework-laden moment when it happens, and sometimes it actually creeps into your life without you even noticing it until a few months or even years later. Let’s look at some signs that you might actually be in love. 

1. They’re the ones who make you feel better

If something happens to you, or you just have a bad day, they’re the ones who make you feel better and bring a smile to your face like no one else can. [Read: Puppy love to real love – 15 signs you’ve graduated to true love in your relationship]

2. You value their opinion

Even for something as simple as wanting to know if your outfit looks good, you value their opinion over everyone else’s. Although, remember that your own opinion is just as important too! 

3. When they’re ill or upset, your heart literally aches

The real meaning of love is true and complete empathy. If you see your love in any kind of pain, it’s almost too much for you to bear. Your ultimate goal would automatically be taking their pain and upset away, even if you know that you can’t. That’s probably the true definition of love right there. 

4. You’re their biggest supporter

Whatever they do in life, you’re their biggest cheerleader, and want them to succeed beyond everything else. It makes you feel proud of them whenever they do well.

It’s a pure example of love when, as Rabbi David Wolpe said, “it is when one person believes in another person and shows it,” and that it “is a feeling that expresses itself in action.” Having a supportive mate can make one feel confident. [Read: Very powerful but small gestures that show love in a very big way]

5. When you’re with them, you feel your best

You’re happier, lighter on your feet, smile more, and generally feel your best when you’re around them. They take away your worries and help you to feel content. It’s not even just about sexual activity, but you genuinely just want their presence and company.

6. If you’re away from them, you don’t feel right

While it’s normal to be away from your partner in some situations, if you are away from them for any length of time, you feel like something is missing, and it doesn’t right itself until you’re reunited.  

7. You know that you would do anything for them

The term “anything” should be taken with a pinch of salt here, but if asked to do something, you would consider it.

Of course, it depends on what that thing is, but you would move heaven and earth if you could – sometimes without them even asking you to. That’s just what unconditional love is. [Read: How to prove that you love someone the right way]

8. You see your future with them

The meaning of love is when you see them in your whole future. When you look forward, you see them in your life and see the two of you together, building a life. That future doesn’t have to be the traditional type, but if they’re in the vision you have, that’s a good sign. 

9. You feel upbeat and more positive

When you’re with them, you just feel happy and behave positively. They inject a sense of happiness and joy into your day, and it’s a great feeling to have. 

10. You’re not going through emotional rollercoasters all the time

Don’t worry if the ups and downs slowly ebb away. This is normal! It means you’ve moved past the “not being sure where you stand” stage. You’re now in love, happy, and content.

Of course, love can still make people crazy occasionally— either with euphoria or jealousy, but this shouldn’t be the overriding theme. [Read: The 9 stages of love all couples have to go through]

11. Despite all of this, you fear losing them

Despite feeling calm and comfortable, you still have a slight worry in the pit of your stomach that one day this will all end, and they’ll be taken away from you.

Again, this is normal when your emotions are so strongly invested in another person. Push that worry aside and focus on the life you’re building together.

[Read: How to overcome the fear of losing someone you love]

Now that you know the meaning of love, do you think you’re in true love? How does it feel for you? The true definition of love differs for every single person. But for those who experience love in any guise, it’s a special thing indeed.