…but there’s just one little question that I insist on asking, just out of curiousity. We have lots of threads where we play around about Valentine’s Day and crushes and the like but you all got me to thinking about Love.
Love is different for everyone, right? So I’ll get to my point…
How do YOU define love?
And I mean in either a general sense or preferably in a romantic sense between two people. Thanks bunches everyone!
Huggles and Smooches,
Kitty
Love (n): 1. The obsessive infatuation with another person, place, or thing. (I ~ you). 2. The debilitating emotion held by people usu. occurring with spending cash on large gifts and mumbling things like “woo-woo” and “cutie pie”. 3. A common misspelling of “Loove” See:“Loove”
Tripler
Debilitating. Really. . .
Love is someone who I can sit down and have a conversation with every evening and never be bored or run out of things to talk about.
There are two people who I have met in my life that fit that catagory. One is my wife, and the other is on this very board. I am not gonna say who though. 
I’m sure love is different for everyone.
Love for me is when you can trust someone implicitly. You can tell them anything and know they will not embarrass you, support you, and not think negativly of you. You can snuggle in their arms and feel like this is where you are meant to be. You sync with their emotions, can relate to their problems, and tell what they are thinking. You never grow bored of them. ever. You have fun with them and they can always surprise you. You think about them at least 2 times an hour. You miss them when you are apart for more than 8 hours. you don’t get overly jealous because you know they love you.
Listening to this mantra about love, you must think I am sick. I think I’m love sick. But this is all the ways I feel about my husband. I’m such a sap.
Love is the ill-advised conviction that the object of said affection is somehow not a danged idjit, and, while the remainder of the human race has been whacked diligently with an ugly stick, somehow one solitary person seems to have escaped the ordeal. Alcohol and the absence of good lighting enhance these beliefs; daylight and familiarity are the cure.
Love is just love. It’s the feeling you have when you wake up in the morning next to the person your with and you could just sit their for hours and watch them sleep. It’s knowing that they are going to be there whenever something goes wrong in your life. It’s being able to be mad at them one minute and being able to play around with each other the very next minute. Love is a feeling of euphoria that I get from my girlfriend. All is good and wonderful when I am around here and I’d give anything to make her happy. Most of all it’s just something that is wonderful it can’t be described by words but better described as a beautiful golden sunset on the ocean that is completely awe inspiring. Love is something that happens for no reason at all but it happens for all the right reasons.
Love seems hardest when you’re apart.
When I’m away from her and I wake up in the morning, and she’s the first thing I think of? That’s Love.
When I look at her picture at work and my heart melts, and I can’t get her out of my mind…
Love for me is when I count down the hours to get home and talk to her on the phone, and we finish each other’s sentences.
It’s falling asleep at night with a smile on my face, as I dream about her laugh, her wit, her beautiful face…
Best of all, Love is knowing that someone else feels the same way about you.
And I’m so very glad that a certain Doper does…
Love is living through the mundane stuff together.
New love is exciting. New love is thinking that your beloved is beautiful wearing a mud pack, flannel nightgown, and Scooby-Doo slippers.
True love, on the other hand, is something completely different. It’s knowing that she looks butt-ugly dressed like that, and it’s knowing that she thinks he looks pretty sorry as well in those “Kiss Me I’m Irish” boxers she bought him when he was four sizes smaller. But they’re comfortable with each other that way. And they both know that once she gets that mud pack off and he changes his shorts, things will start looking up.
She’ll put on that dress that he likes so much–the one that clings in all the right places. He’ll put on a nice dress shirt and slacks, the ones that she likes, because they really do make his butt look mighty good. A nice dinner, some dancing, and they’ll be the vibrant young couple that fell in love so many years ago. And when the band plays “their song,” they’ll fall in love again.
And the next morning, he’ll make the coffee (because he does make better coffee), and they’ll talk about what a good time they had last night–and she’ll be wearing that mud pack, and he’ll be wearing those boxers. Then the dog will start barking, the phone will start ringing, and the kids will start a food fight.
But you stay together, because it isn’t just love you share. It’s life.
Love begins as euphoria. It’s the melding of two hearts, the creation of another entity – strong as it is together, the intensity increases when apart. The new you can’t be defined without her.
The euphoria gives away to the taut chords of commitment, which must be tweaked as you settle together and grow. You’ve felt each other out. You’ve met midway on many of the most pressing issues, and you continue to work on the issues that remain. Because you’re in Love.
Then, comes your baby. And Love is redefined again, only umpteen times as intense, because nothing mortal could break this bond. Love, in its purest form, is a baby’s smile.
Persephone, thank you. You put it so well. The only thing I wanted to add was,
Obsession is when you can’t live without someone…
Love is when you CAN live without them, you just don’t want to.
(the “kiss me I’m Irish” shorts hit WAY too close to home here!) laugh snort chuckle
Thank you, Kitty! Thank you so much for starting this topic. 
I’ve argued this with my friend Kate before, many times. I think it’s sometimes difficult to see the differences between love and lust and infatuation. This is what I wrote about fourteen months ago, in reference to my then-girlfriend, Claire. (No, we’re no longer together. Long story. However, the current status of our relationship doesn’t change what I wrote.) I debated sharing this, because it is quite personal, but … here you go. [Warning: Extreme Sappiness Alert.]
That being said, I agree with a lot of what Dire Wolf, tubagirl, and Tiki said.
Love is that feeling that makes you smile, unknowingly and widely, the second she comes into view. Love is what makes you want to hold her safe, and close, so that she never, ever feels sad. And love is worth the wait.
That and everything Persephone said.
My unromantic definition of love is pretty simple - it is being willing to put someone else’s needs above your own, and the reasonable expectation that they will do the same for you.
I’m still working on separating the romantic one from all the (perfectly fabulous, but not to be depended on) lust and infatuation stuff. I think it’s when my perspective changes, at some point he feels like ‘home’ - not in a place sense, more like a comfort sense.
When he is where I want to be at the beginning and end of my day, and I’m happier in the middle knowing that it’ll happen.
I’ve gotta say I agree with most of the posters in this thread - and that Dire Wolf’s post brought tears to my eyes. My idea of romantic love is something like this, though any relationship can (and IMO should) be lived by these rules. Please forgive forgive me for the bit of quoting…
Love is patient…
Time and distance just don’t matter. When I’d wait for her an eternity and smile about it because I know she’s there for me when I need her and that I can be there for her, that is love. When we put up with each other’s babbling and fiddling around and smile even though we have something important to do, that’s love too.
Love is kind…
Knowing those little things that please and taking pleasure in doing them, being able to not criticize when it would do nothing but harm. Even the little smile she gives when I enter the room that makes me feel welcome is love to me.
Love does not envy; love does boast; love is not proud…
Love sees past the surface, and touches at the core of being. Love means you don’t mind if they are better than you are, and that you won’t lord over them if the reverse is true. It is a meeting in the middle of two people who choose to care about each other, and nothing else can matter.
Love is not rude…
Being there when you say you will, being quiet when they’re sleeping. Taking care of little things they said they would when they’re busy. Everything down to holding the door for her and helping with her coat… these things are love.
Love is not self seeking…
When her well being is my goal, when I would rather make her smile for a moment than spend eternity in heaven, it is love. Changing plans to suit her when my idea is different and knowing that if she knew she’d have done the same, that is love.
Love is not easily angered; love keeps no record of wrongs…
Love to me means there is nothing I could not forgive, that nothing could cause me to want to leave her. That no matter what happens, I will always be ready to hold her and comfort her. That nothing can change the way I feel.
Love always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Love never fails.
I have no idea. I know I’ve never been in love, though.
but I’ve only been in true love with one, and he’s the one I’m with now and will be marrying one day when we get around to it.
The difference for me was very clear, and very simple: with the other men, I always knew, from day one and throughout, that the relationship would end one day. Didn’t know how or when, I just knew it would. And it always did. I would be deeply sad, it always hurt, but it was never a surprise.
I assumed the same with him, at first. But gradually, things changed. And about a year into our relationship, I realized something: I couldn’t see a future without him. I didn’t ever want to live without him again. This man was the one I wanted with me for the rest of my life, the one I wanted with me on the day I leave this earth, the one I wanted with me when I get old, ugly, and deaf. When I tried to imagine us breaking someday, I felt like I couldn’t breathe.
Fortunately for me, it turns out he feels the same way.
The Guardian newspaper’s ‘Notes & Queries’ column carried a similar question a few years ago, asking fr the best, most succinct definition of ‘love’. The best serious answer was “love is ongoing positive regard”. I know it’s not hi-falutin’ or romantic, but it’s a good working defnition.
Also a few years ago there was a BBC2 documentary which examined the same point by looking at several different couples, their relationships varying from ‘very shaky’ to ‘rock solid’. The couple with the most ‘rock solid’ relationship were nothing out of the ordinary - very average kind of people living very average kind of lives. But what the documentary showed was that he was constantly doing little things for her that made her life a bit easier, partly based on the expectation that she would reciprocate, and vice-versa. As simple as that.
My two cents? This is what I wrote for someone special a couple of years ago:
"Love is the twisting
Of sparks pre-existing
Which arc on the kindling
Of kinder intent
Love is a questing
For tones of attesting
Which sonar the fathoms
Of favour’s consent
Love is a misting
Of lines of resisting
Which signs the surcease
Of soloist station
Love is a healing
A scar-less redeeming
Which harnesses hope to
The heart’s aspiration"
Love is wanting another person’s happiness, preferably with you, but even without.
Love is when he is the last thing you think about before drifting off to sleep and the first thing upon waking up.
Love is knowing that you can confess your deepest darkest secrets and know they will never be used to hurt you.
Love is being able to be yourself 100% and know you fascinate the other person.
Love is seeing things in him that he doesn’t see in himself.
Love is the fact that, not only is he your lover, he is also your best friend. The first person you want to share news with, be it good or bad.
Love is that connection you feel with another person that makes it so you can’t remember a time he wasn’t a part of your life.
Love is knowing that you don’t have to hide how much you love him because he loves you just as much.
Love is getting sexually aroused when he explains endothermic reactions. 
Love A temporary insanity curable by marrage. [sub]Ambroise Bierce, The devils dictionary[/sub]
Love is ecstacy at the special persons joys and pleasures.
It is to consider their dreams a purpose, for them and yourself.
Love is what other people get.