Love is probably the most popular English word in the world. Everyone of will in our life time use the word love (even if we do so in a different language). Though it has variety of meanings depending on who is looking at it, there serenity of the word cuts through all human hearts.

To many of us, love is an emotion of a strong affection and personal attachment to someone or something. Love is also said to be a virtue representing all of human kindness, compassion, and affection.

Though compassionate and affection towards oneself comes under the umbrella of love, it is “the unselfish loyal and benevolent concern for the good of another” that describes love for me best.

What is love to you?

Love has several meanings to several people. It has no single definition because it is made of countless components-virtues.  We ask for and offer love in all aspect of our lives with interpersonal relationship being one of the high places love is expected.

When I look for love in relationships, I look for kindness, peace, understanding, beauty, elegance, pleasure, affection, compassion, attraction, loyalty, lust, faithfulness, romance, sexual satisfaction, friendship, closeness and strong-like in perpetuity.

The many components that come together to make up love explain why it has numerous meanings and interpretations.

“Love may refer specifically to the passionate desire and intimacy of romantic love, to the sexual love of eros, to the emotional closeness of familial love, to the platonic love that defines friendship, or to the profound oneness or devotion of religious love, or to a concept of love that encompasses all of those feelings”.

This diverse meaning we find in love together with the unusual, unexplainable and complex feelings involved, make love remarkably difficult to consistently define, compared to other emotional states.

Love to me is everything and I hope it means the same to you. If I am ever asked the question; what is love?

I will never attempt to fetch a meaning for love because love goes beyond any specific definition, cuts across all boundaries. Rather, I will cite those things which we can all agree are NOT love.

That is me, what about you? What is love to you? What does love mean to you? And what is NOT love?