Is love different from person to person? Do we all define love differently? Can we only love someone with a similar definition?
Our society and popular media portray love as something closely related to sex. My cat loves whoever gives her her dinner. Sex In The City doesn't seem to have any love. Even my parents seem to have a different idea of what love is.
Are we taught love? Do we learn love? It seems to be as difficult to define as defining what part of music moves us.
It's true that there are lots of different kinds of love. I love food, I love my cat, I love my brother, I love my friends, and I love my boyfriend. But verbalising what separates a romantic relationship from a close friendship can be very hard to do.
Is it what you share with one another? Is it what you do together? Is it your feelings for each other? How come you can break up with a boyfriend, but not a best friend? If you stop feeling a particular way towards your boyfriend it's a rule that you "break-up". What does that mean? You stop seeing each other? Not always. You stop sleeping together? Not always. You stop loving each other? Not always. You lose the intimacy?
To be intimate with someone is to be very close with them. You understand each other completely. But you can still understand someone completely and not love them. To be intimate with someone when you are in love is to feel completely comfortable around them, like they would never judge you. This is necessary in love.
When a romantic relationship ends it hurts. Sometimes the pain is terrible. Perhaps a dependency is necessary in love.
So why do we search for it for so much of our lives, and when we find it we feel that our lives are fuller? When we feel like our lives are fuller, we feel like this is what separates us from the animals, this is what makes us human. So is that all love is? Something to make us feel human?
