What is love?

It’s “an intense feeling of deep affection” according to the Oxford Dictionary, but Haddaway pretty much just describes it as, “baby, don’t hurt me.”

Now the first description is accurate and straightforward. The second is, well, not so accurate. I guess that’s what I’ll be getting into today.

Love is not all fairytales and perfection. Yeah, many people say they know that, but they don’t. You ask them why they like someone and they simply say, “We never fight. We’re always on the same page. It’s just all perfect.” That’s not love. That’s a temporary phase in the beginning of a relationship. After that phase ends is usually when things either stay light or go dark.

Adults have told us that we, as teenagers, as “kids in high school”, are incapable of feeling love or falling in love with someone, but they are completely wrong. Yeah, there may be times or relationships when one is caught in a whirlwind of lust and it soon burns out quickly, or sometimes even goes on unhealthily, but we are capable. And many of us, I think, already have.

Now you’re like, Whoa, falling in love? That’s what this is over? Yes, this is the specific phrase of love I am talking about. What does the Oxford Dictionary have to say about this? Falling in love is the development of a deep romantic or physical attachment to someone. How crazy this is that even the Oxford Dictionary is wrong? Physical attachment is described as lust, not love, but it’s possible to feel both for the same person.

That’s what we mix up, as inexperienced little kiddies in a world constantly changing, constantly judging, and constantly draining.

I’m here to change your point of view on what love is.

Love can be seen in body language and it can be heard in words. Love can also be shown in sacrifices.

When two people, even just standing or sitting, tend to lean toward each other, even subtitly, that’s a sign. When someone asks someone why they love a person, and then trip to find the words to say why, that is a signal. If they truly loved someone, they will eventually find the words to say, even if they take five minutes to say a sentence because they’re stuttering through a red face and a smile. When someone loves a person, and still is able to let them go because they know that they’re not able to make the other person as happy as they should or could be, it is possible that this is love.

And all at the same time, it’s also possible that it’s not love. You could convince yourself you’re in love, and your brain can believe that. You have that kind of power over yourself.

Love can be described as wanting to be with someone through the absolute worst situations, even if it’s the most awful thing to do. There are so many relationships in the world that are abusive, yet one or both of them still love each other. But staying with them is, well, just the worst thing possible.

Love doesn’t necessarily mean happiness in every aspect. Love is messy and it will occasionally hurt. Things will go bad. Different people require different relationships and some people just have a better compatibility with certain people.

But we can feel love, and we most likely have felt love, but we’re still blinded by that perfect thing that we long for, which simply does not exist.

Whenever a person is in love they will start to grow distant from everyone else. They will start to put things off and spend time with the person they love most. And sometimes this can grow to an irresponsible amount, and us, as high school students, forget our friends and procrastinate on our homework, and focus completely on one person. We give them all of us, because that’s all we know how to do.

We were told as kids to give our all on every single thing we did, whether it be school, sports, or cleaning up our bedroom. That’s what we were told. But then when we find someone we like or even love, it’s suddenly a “Well, don’t give them all of yourself.” And while that’s not fair, it’s also not completely true.

We struggle to balance at our age. That’s obvious. It’s hard to balance school, sports, work, homework, friends, family, and love; and being as inexperienced as we are, we find it nearly impossible. So we give some things more than we should. Now this isn’t going to get into how to balance all that stuff; don’t worry about all that. This is about the right type of balance.

You shouldn’t have to feel that you can’t give someone all of your heart, but you do have to worry about only putting your time towards one person and not yourself. That love you have will eventually implode and collapse, because then you just want time to yourself and no one else. You’ll start to hate them for no reason. So I suggest if they ask to hangout or if they try to text all night or facetime, and you feel the desire to do something for yourself, do that instead. Watch a movie, cook, listen to music, go for a joyride. Just keep yourself alive while you explore another world with someone else rather than being together all the time. They should understand that and you should understand it too.

I guess my main points here is that love goes somewhat along these lines:

A compassionate love is a durable love, a love that can thrive off affection. This is the form of love needed for a lasting relationship. To make the decision to stay committed. Compassionate love involves feelings of mutual respect, trust, and devotion.

Passionate love is the love we generally always feel when we first like someone. It’s the intense feelings — which unfortunately includes the intense heartache when they’re gone — and also physical attraction. This can eventually die off, according to scientists, which is why you don’t see many elderly people making out in the park while feeding the pigeons, but that’s not necessarily true. It’s just the intensity dies down as we mature,the excitement of a new person dwindles and we start to focus on our other priorities. This is good, as long as it’s not too much lack of focus from the person.

An intimate relationship is extremely close, both physically and emotionally. Imagine the one you love also being your best friend. That’s an emotionally intimate relationship. We as humans desire to be loved and belong to someone or something. It’s just how we work.

These three things are each described as a form of love. Everyone has a different interpretation of love, but if you put the ardent, empathetic, and intimate forms of love together, you will realize that that is the formula of two people “fallen in love.”

What is love? It’s not perfect, same as everything else, but it’s also one of the most euphoric feelings one could ever have.