Moreover lenore, if there is unconditional love in general, then in case of romantic love, if my spouse cheated on me, then I would still love him right? But that would make me heartless, 'cause I didn’t hurt because of what he did, moreover, to accept his cheating, it would also make me irrational because rationally I should be upset by his cheating. Now, since I know that I have a heart and am rational, therfore, there can be no such thing as unconditional love. Of course people can go into denial because the truth or reality hurts, but that does not mean they accept it. Because to accept it would make them robots and irrational too, but people are not robots and they are not irrational. So, there is no such thing as unconditional love. 
Love is trusting that your partner can fulfill the expectations you have of them in order to preserve your ideological perception of yourself…
So, in other words, if you think that you’re an intelligent individual, you’re probably going to want to date someone who is intelligent as well. Now, in what way are they intelligent is irrelevant. You pride yourself in intelligence, you’re going to want someone to reflect that to you so youc an preserve your own mythology of intelligence that brought you to the person in the first place.
It works with opposities too: if you’re intelligent you may desire a partner that isnt’ intelligent so you can exert your intelligence over them. This way you can actualize your perception of selfhood and your myth of coherency (“I am an intelligent person”…“I am an attractive person”) by subjugating your partner.
Love is a decision. Nothing more. Its based on a committment, whether you can or cannot stand to be with that person. A person I respect greatly once said that love is preferring to be unhappy with the person your currently with than to be happy with someone new. The idea is that love is not a feeling which is often why people mistake loving someone with being in love with someone. People fall in an out of love all the time. What makes a relationship worth anything is the committment, good or bad.
What? Your Honour, love is a desire to love and be loved. It is NOT a decision. And when love is not returned in the same way then it changes and you’re saying that it somehow becomes unconditional love? What? Say that again and see how ridiculous it sounds.
While I can appreciate the romanticized image of love as a desire to love and be loved, any successful married couple will tell you that those desires fizzle after “the honeymoon period” of the relationship. What the relationship is based on, then, is not some desire but a determination to remain with that person. Certainly, the spark, desire, chemistry any other emotional components are important, but when you strip the relationship bare, what remains is the committment. My father told me that the woman he married 25 years ago is not the same woman he is married to today. The relationship has changed and yet remains because of they’ve made the decision.
Let me also give you an extreme example to demonstrate this point. If stranded on an island with one other person male or female, whichever you’re attracted to, this person will become the love of your life, not because of some desire, but because he/she is just there. The only reason why people split up today is because of options. When the options disappear, then the choice is made for you. Therefore, many divorced couples whose divorce was based on irreconcileable differences simply choose to not reconicle and instead seek out available options. In reality, love can be theirs if they simply decided that it be.
Love is haveing great sex over and over and over.
lol what is it with u and sex 
every post i read of urs! heh
Do you not like sex or something?
firstly why does every one sit around trying to define love instead of just feeling it? in answer to my own question… because its this amazing phenomenon that nobody understands and when we think (note the word think) we feel it, we start to question it.
Somebody special once told me that the word love is in an inadequet word to describe the complexity of the feeling.
I think the word “love” has been abused throughout the centuries by people who don’t truly understand it and by people who use it to make selfish gains. Its been used so much that its true meaning has becom warped.
i think love is unique to every individual i.e. what i call love is very different to what someone gives the name to. thats why falling in love is so risky. you can never be sure your other half feels the same or feels something that matches what u feel.
It is like Mr. Smith said in the Matrix, in the final scene:
“Do you believe you’re fighting for something, for more than your survival. Can you tell me what it is, do you even know? Is it freedom or truth, perhaps peace, what about love? Illusions Mr. Anderson, vagaries of perception. Temporary constructs of a feeble human intellect trying desperately to justify an existence that is without meaning or purpose. And all as artificial as the matrix itself.”
My feelings exactly.
Hi Nikol,
You’ve said that love is a phenomenon that nobody understands, but then you say that the word is abused by people who don’t understand it. How could something that nobody understands be misunderstood? You begin by saying that nobody (including you) understands love; so how could you rightfully say that someone is abusing the meaning of a word that you, yourself, don’t understand? 
Regards,
Michael
Hi Micheal,
heh! yup u got me there! heh! woah! u really took me round in circles there. i think i should rephrase what i said : love is a phenomenon that nobody understands, and becuase nobody understands it, it has been abused. It has been abused because now it is used for people to make selfish gains. Or abused unintentionally. in the sense that, pathetic little feelings are given the name love. i don’t understand love but i sure as hell know its not comprised of little insignificant feelings. You asked, How could something that nobody understands be misunderstood?But mate, if no one understands it, its a generally misunderstood phenomenon.
Nikol
I’d like to think that some emotions are so powerful words fall short of an accurate description. I have been in love and i too tried to describe it, but when i did i realised something; it doesn’t matter. A description is for the conceptual convience of the mind. All that mattered was the feeling.
“Love” is an ambiguous and vague word which is used to refer to a great number of feelings. Instead of asking “what is love?”, a question which will have as many answers as there are language users, one should map out these different feelings, and if necessary, give them appropriate names.
Love is a ‘best fit’ word in a language which lacks depth.
Love is nothing more than an attraction to your “soul”
Your greatest love is nothing more than the strongest attraction to your soul.
As far as words to describe it? I doubt there are.
Our language holds words of definition, not of scope…
We attempt to narrow things and learn this, incidently, from each other.
I think that if our actions follow our thoughts strictly enough, we might actually be able to make this world implode … Gotta love it!
Perhaps love has to do with the meeting of two souls (or ‘hearts’ if you don’t like ‘soul’), without barriers. ‘Meeting’ meaning some kind of mutual recognition AND acceptance of the other’s true being, their intrinsic value, if you will. ‘Barriers’ meaning the countless psychological and emotional walls we use as self-protection; things that dull our sensitivity to beauty and lessen our empathic abilities. Love would be a form of ultimate vulnerability to The Other (‘Other’ encompassing all things from nature to God to humans, etc.).
To love is to walk a razor thin line between appreciation and greed–to open your heart completely to the beauty of something/someone beyond your Self, appreciate its true beauty/worth/value while, simultaneously, keeping darker forces (like selfishness, possessiveness, ownership, entitlement) at bay. One misstep and the blade cuts straight into the deepest part of your being, and possibly even worse, into the being of the Beloved as well. In this sense, love is the greatest personal risk; the risk of one’s entire Being (and not to be confused with the warm, fuzzy feeling that fuels erections…).
Femphil wrote
Beautifully said!
The totality of what I know about you as a person is contained within those two short paragraphs. Still, you’ve managed to say quite a bit about who you are in those few lines. And you’ve stated some impressive credentials; or I should say, those are the sort of credentials that most impress me.
BTW, what you’ve said in the second paragraph is in accord with the Aristolelian concept of virtue - where virtue stands at the summit between two chasams (i.e., humilty stands between blind egoism and abject nihilism, etc.).
Best wishes,
Michael
Maybe I’m a fool, but I still like my own definition. It’s simple, too the point, and covers a wide variety of proper uses for the term, not just the romantic case. The romantic case would definately have to optian some of the qualities in the above post- something about the interation between two people.
Here is my opinion on the subject
Love is a natural mechinism serving to endear people to us to the extent we would be willing to defend and care for them.
In the wild, this would serve many obvious benifits.