Love is...

Love, like pretty much any other philosophical idea, is whatever you define it for yourself. And that definition will change over time. Some people don't like that changing part, and get their lives in a big bunch basically resisting themselves.

To me "Love" is a very easy definition:

To care about another's happiness more than your own.

Now if you want a definition of "Romantic Love" mine would be:

To care about another's happiness more than your own, and you wanna jump their bones.

I find most pop culture representations of love ludicrous. And I think that the expectations that these representations build are the cause of most of common relationship problems that we see in our culture today.

"movie love" is usually just lust. Now, I view this as a very important part of romantic love, but it is only a part.

Wanting to hump each other does not guarantee that you can live together or even like each other.

Finding someone that you can like and live with is much harder than finding someone that you want to Bump Uglies with. And people get stuck trying to make the other parts work when they find someone that works in a few categories. You really have to get someone that is the whole package (or go Poly [Not that polyamory is any easier]).

Oh, that whole thing about "not being to love anyone before you are able to love yourself". That shit is true! Most people in the US culture have no idea how to love themselves. Most people really just think they need a bigger car and then "poof" they will like their lives.

Oh!, and the ones that don't feel that way. They love themselves because their Invisible Friend tells them that they are special. Which does solve that one problem, but causes a whole load of other ones...