All is Full of Love

"I'm not a smart man, but I know what love is."

- Forest Gump (1994)

Wrong. I don’t think anyone really knows what love really is. We know the feelings it provokes, but it largely remains a mysterious force shrouded in chocolates and Hallmark cards.

Maybe love is when you really like someone, think about them all the time and have an inner desire to spend every moment with them. The mere thought of them sends warm shivers up your spine. Whenever they contact you, you shriek in amazement. And you constantly long for anything that reminds you of them.

Well, no. That's limerance. A superficial feeling based on intense romantic desire for another person. A desire that demands reciprocation to be validated otherwise the limerant person experiences immense distress and feelings of abandonment.

Maybe love is when you choose to care about someone, motivated by an inexplicable feeling of concern. To commitedly cater for their every need and want. Psychologist Robert Sternberg's 1986 Triangular Theory of Love yields seven different types of love. Each has a combination of passion, intimacy, and commitment. Only four have commitment as a component, so maybe it isn't that crucial after all?

And is the love negated if the commitment is obligated? It could be argued that the love between parent and child is born out of biological obligation. That a morally sound parent will always care for a child not necessarily out of love, but out of moral duty. Put simply, it’s the right thing to do. Is this love different to the one that two complete strangers create by their own volition?

Maybe love happens when two people simply agree to put up with each other. When they understand each others imperfections and embrace them. When they agree to unconditionally commit to each other exclusively, selflessly providing reliant support that eases them through life’s challenges. When they are held together by an unexplicable attraction, one that our highly intellectual minds are unable to fathom.

“Every asshole says they love somebody, it means nothing. What you feel only matters to you. It’s what you do to the people you say you love, that’s what matters.”

- The Last Kiss (2006)

Enough already. Hand me a bucket.