What Is Love? Complicated, Strange And Has Trickery Written All Over It!

Most of the time we are relatively content in knowing whether we love someone or not but when asked 'what exactly is love' very few words spring to mind. Some people will agree that it's because love has no true meaning, love is just what love is. Other people are deeply inquisitive and want to know more about what they feel or what other people may feel towards them.

In short love could be defined as our will to want good for another person, our desire to display our kindness or the gratitude for something that meets our approval.

When we love someone we grow an overwhelming feeling of never wanting anything bad to come of that person, we naturally want the best of the best for them. We want to see them happy; in fact that desire is so great that we often put their happiness and wellbeing first over our own.

Love is indeed a very strange thing. The term ‘love is blind’ was not invented single handily from someone’s broken marriage and their sudden ability to see their partner for what they really were. It is quite true that when we are in love with someone we do overlook many of their bad habits and this is because we care more for that person than we do those habits.

I love my family and I can honestly say that some of them are wildly outrageous in terms of things that they may do compared to things that I might do but it does not make me love them any less, I love them just for being them. However, should I ever meet a total stranger that did some of those things I might actually choose to not even like the person for it! We naturally withhold judgement a little more when we love someone.

We go through much of our childhood being told that we should share to be nicer people but as soon as we are older that all changes. We suddenly want stuff to keep for ourselves; we become a little bit selfish. We want our own cars, our own houses, our own space and so on. Almost all sharing goes out of the window like everything we had been taught meant nothing at all. That is except for the selected few people that we love. Ok I admit sometimes I don’t always want to share my chocolate bar and I probably wouldn’t want to trust everybody I love to drive my car especially as not all of them are even out of pre-school yet, but if someone I love needed a place to stay or needed to gate-crash my space for a bit then I would be more than happy to share that with them.

When we care for those that we love, we usually make the choice to want to share everything with them, even many years of our lives or as marriage would suggest - the rest of our lives.

You would think love is love and that’s it, you either love someone or you don’t but it’s far more complicated than that. There’s the thin line! Some thin lines come with a safety net, others are not so lucky. No one partially wants to cross it but sometimes it happens and when it does it becomes judgement day.

Family in most cases except for the very extraordinary situations get a free ride on the safety net. They get the greatest love of all, the unconditional love. You don’t always like them or like what they have done and sometimes in a heated argument you don’t even want to talk to them ever again, but despite all of that somehow you know deep inside that you still love them even if you can only secretly admit that to yourself.

Friends and partners however are not usually so lucky, one major slip and it’s game over! This love has trickery written all over it. Yes I love you, yes I love you unconditionally and yes I will always love you… and then in comes the small print like your love has just been read out on a TV script ‘Terms and Conditions apply’ (it’s everywhere now isn’t it!)

You love them, you would go to hell and back for them, you turn a blind eye to their bad traits and you’ll forgive them for any silliness you possibly can but physically or emotionally hurt you, break your trust, take your kindness for a weakness and they are walking near the thin line like a pirate edging down the plank. This is the most testing love of all because you make the choice the let them slowly walk back to safety or snatch your love back quicker that then they can say ‘splash!’.

Love can be instant like many mothers will feel with their new-born baby or love can grow like it does in relationships and over time it becomes stronger, but ultimately the choice to start loving someone is with the giver. You can withhold your love or you can share it. You can love with just love or you can love with unconditional love.

Even those that walk the plank many times over can still receive a massive amount of love from the giver and if the giver chooses to then they can even give unconditional love to their friends or partners. They can go through their whole life letting them walk up and down the plank and they can forgive over and over again out of love, but what they cannot do is control how the receiver returns their love.

You can love someone with everything you have; you can choose to give unconditionally, you can wish for someone to have the best of the best.

If the other person loves you on the same level then and only then will true love take its rightful place on the throne!