What does Love Mean to You?
 

It is such a complex emotion. Some people muder because of it, while others die in spite of it.

What does love mean to you? I'd love to hear you're individual perspectives.

(it is a vauge question, but it is that way on purpose since the hazy, catch-all English love, is not as precise as, say, agape or eros).

Love is such a broad field, and as such, can have many meanings. Be more specific. What do you mean? Romantic love? etc.

Love - putting the welfare of the object of the affection above one's own, frequently to the point where the restructuring is counter to one's own survival and well-being.

Example: I love my wife and kids. I would die to protect them.

It is poor reasoning from a personal survival standpoint, but love is more important than personal survival.

unconditional love - love for a person no matter... best example love for a child from a mother...

it's not like a faucet you can turn on and of... but it's a choice. I choose who I love and who I don't love, but once it's there.. it's there...

Love is an emotion. A powerful one at that. It can drive people to defy all kinds of logic.
Emotions are what makes us do things.
Intelligence is what allows us to do them.
Emotion is our DNA's way of ensuring that we behave.
DNA uses this system of control to ensure that we do what benefits it. We are still under it's indirect control, despite it giving us intellegence and free will to do as we please.

Wow, a prosaic and unromantic description of reality from CSflim...who would have guessed it? :D

I agree with Moonduck's way of looking at it. Potentially irrational sacrifice.

I never understood it either, until I became a father. I knew, intellectually, that I would be willing to die to protect my wife, but when the first of my two kids was born, it passed from a sort of detached knowledge to an unshakable piece of reality. I KNOW that I would die for my kids, to the core of my being.

It is entirely irrational too. I have many rational reasons for loving my wife. We are well matched in many ways, and I think she is, overall, the finest human being I've ever had the privilegde of knowing. With my kids though, I have no real reason other than I'm their Poppa. I'd flat kill someone that hurt either one of them, and would sacrifice myself in an instant to ensure their survival.

I wrote all I have to say in this thread

i let you know when i figure it out

Desire, combined with a need to share.
This is what happens with those you fall in love with.

Trust, combined with a need to share.
This is what happens with your deep friendships.

Support, combined with a need to be a part of.
This is what happens with your family.

Enjoyment, combined with a need to attain.
This is what happens with your true likes in life.

Four different loves, all equally powerful.
They can be addictive, they can be conflicted.
They are what makes us what we are.

I can't say too much on this topic, other than when you find it, you'll know for sure..

Good luck all.

Love is when you care about someone so deeply that you would do anything for him/her... and by having that person in your life it just makes it sooo much better!! =)

I agree with Daydream....probably because I'm deeply in love with her!!

Love means never having to say you're sorry (from the film, Love Story). I never understood that--it doesn't make much sense.

Love seems to be a conditon defined by the individual, and as pointed out here, there are many components to it.

I would have to go with the deepest love I've felt--and that's a primal, *mother bear* protective love for my kids.

Love is a weakness.

There are many different kinds of love. The main marker that I look for is when I care more for that person than I do for myself, but often I find that there are many people I feel that way about. I love my mom, for example, but not nearly in the same way I love my girlfriend. I love my ex-girlfriend, but not in the same way I love my girlfriend.

I think the best way I've ever heard love described was from a Sunday School teacher of mine. I disagreed with everything she said, except for this: "The difference between love and infatuation is time because they both feel the same at first."

I put this on another thread, ill stick it here too!

Love turns you into a blithering gob of goo. and its fun!
love makes you appreciate the small things but it makes you forget the big things in life. Love makes you want to give up everything and have no qualms about being yourself. Love makes us unpredictable but at the same time you can always guess what will happen next. Love lets us get hurt but it can give you feelings unpresidented. Love is a sensitive subject that everyone can relate to. Love can be as extreme as hate or as mediocre as friendship. Love brings insight to the shady and skews our views of the understood. Love clouds your mind and sharpens the eye of your heart. Love makes us compromise or fight harder for what we are. Love makes us feel HUGE or feel tiny. Love can make us feel useless or worth more than the world. Love brings peace and turmoil. Love is as time consuming as it needs to be. Love is personal but everyone knows it.

Well said minyn!

I agree with a lot of the above.

Love is also the desire to bring out and foster the best in the other person and he/she doing the same for you. It is supporting someone in the bad times and celebrating the good times with them. It is hanging in there when times are tough and enjoying when times are easy. It is a choice at times and a deep feeling at other times. Love is very complicated! Love "makes the world go round."

My own definition of Love
 

Love is what I see when I look into her eyes.
Its the longing feeling I have when we are apart.
Its the intense joy I feel whenever I lay eyes on her.
Its the completeness I feel when I wake up by her side.
Its the feeling of total connection when our souls and bodies meet.
Its everything I could ever have wished, and so much more.

That is the intense love for a mate anyway.

I have love for pretty much everyone, just not in that way, and that is most easily defined as a caring interest in all people and their well-being. Its when people violate their responsibility for everyone else that you see that love fade. I still like to believe that everyone is pretty good, and that they are worth watching over and fighting for - which is what I do every day, in some way or another.

Dictionary definition of Love, Affection
 

from http://m-w.com

And just to cross reference, affection, from the same source:

Unfortunately, the dictionary definition is just as ambiguous as most people's definitions usually are (you try asking someone on the street what love means...)

(apologies for the double-post)

Love is when it's not all about you.

I Corinthians ch.13 v.4-7

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

I feel the need to quote Hillary Duff

I think it works.

tikki - yea, it does work. and gotta be glad it does =P

riptide, you stole my bible verse.....drats!

Love is embracing something with your full subjective powers. It is a connection created within you and maintained within you. The only thing that makes love greater than yourself is the awesome creative power it welds. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately?), the distance between yourself that outside of yourself which you love may as well be infinite. The distance fosters the creative energy because we need to fill that gap and create an illusion of unity.

So, it remains to be seen how much I can love existence without turning to the Other and how honest I can be with myself when the Other is present. I'd like to believe I can continue to be more creative and wildly passionate as I continue to get more realistic and honest... It is a struggle that I "love" to grapple with.

to me, love is putting osmeone in front of urself

making their happiness more important than urs, and wanting nothing more than to look into their eyes

I feel a particular pull towards this definition. I'm considerate of my friends, and I'm (generally) polite to strangers and acquaintances, but I'm still #1.

That just isn't the case with the woman I love. (It's not the case with my family, either, but you all know there's a hormonal difference between the two.)