What is love?

It's a very logical thing to say that love is a chemical/emotional change that happens in your body for the purpose of procreating and protecting/nurturing the resulting family long enough for the offspring to live independent of the family unit.

What does it mean to humans, who clearly have too much time on their hands? I dare say I do find the above definition much more comforting, but the tickling in the back of my head says that it's a tad more complex than that. Things people tend to do when they "love" each other:

- Share intimacy.
- Share responsibility
- Entertain each other
- Provide for each other

Ideally that would be all they do with each other, but after a certain closeness is achieved some negatives tend to get thrown in the works, such as:

- Conflict
- Distress
- Discontent

Now the former aspects tend to lessen as the latter aspects rise to power, but if the two people love each other enough, an acceptable compromise is usually reached. If that acceptable compromise isn't reached, then the two people probably don't love each other enough. Perhaps somewhere in the world a long-term relationship exists where none of the latter aspects are really a very significant factor in anything, and I suppose this is what people would call "true love" although I all too often find that "fleeting love", or "love at first sight" (meaning the elated overload of joy you feel when you meet someone you are physically attracted to and/or only exchange the good things in the beginning) is mistaken for the termed "true love".

What do we then do with this love? Well, there are several "leaps" of sorts, called commitments. For me personally, I would rather these leaps were just ignored and a relationship with another person defines itself without requiring a formal label. I think most people, however, need those labels for reasons of mental security and as a somewhat standardized definition of boundaries. Formal labels, not necessarily chronological:

- Courting
- Dating
- Girlfriend/boyfriend
- Living together
- Married
- Family
- Life mates

Counter labels:

- I just got stood up
- I can't handle you chewing on your toenails
- Dumped
- Moved out
- Divorced
- Separated
- Dead

Yes, yes, that all sounded very stale and technical. Hey, if you want a breezy, emotional, sympathetic answer, ask someone else.

"But Aaron, what about love of a family member?"

Well yes. Then Love means everything there minus the sexual intimacy. You didn't really need to ask me that did you?

My summarized definition of love?

Love is exchanging life with another person and enjoying it.

-Aaron