My Personal Interpretation of Love
The essence of love
In essence love is giving freely, unconditionally and without expecting any premeditated rewards or awards for the act of giving.
There is an old adage which says "You can give without loving, but you cannot love without giving."
The question then would be; What do we "give in love" that segregates it from "giving without loving?"
I live my life of love in agreement with the philosophical and theoretical background of love as follow;
"Love is Ultimate Beauty that is Only God"
In religious mentality, God is the term applied to the figurehead of spirituality and holiness, among others;
In my personal interpretation of the term "God"; "God" is the term I use to equate with "Ultimate and Perfect Beauty", "Perfect Love", "Ultimate Source of Complete Abundance", "The Perfection of Potentials, Creativity and Productivity" and "All Things Bright and Beautiful."
"Love equals God and God equals Love"
Love is not just romance between human beings; in this case, romance is just among the by-products of the essence of God or Love.
The philosophy: God is Love and being Love, there must be an object of His Love or a receiver of His Love or "something that acknowledges Him as Love or His Godhead" hence He created the Universe.
The Universe then is the "female" counterpart of God, the product of His Perfect Creation, the Receiver of His Love or Perfect Godhead, the feminine Reciprocal of His masculinity...and so forth. If we try to be observant enough, everything around us, natural or man-made is a representation of reciprocity or sexuality. Sexuality is the by-product of love hence as an integral part of the Universe that "God" or "Love" has created as His reciprocal, we, human beings, among the rest of the creatures in this vast Universe, reciprocate with each other in the name of Love, or in the name of God. Whether you are an atheist or otherwise, does not really matter; the whole Creation of Love works according to the essence of Love.
"True Love or Perfect Love is imputed and only comes from the Source, God"
Human beings then need to be connected to the Source of Love in order to experience the true joy and bliss of living in all areas of our existence. Everything begins in Love...love begets love, begets children, creative, productive, beautiful, pleasurable, abundance, fulfilling, in its essence.
True love can only function naturally if we are connected to the Source of Perfection; in which, being connected gives us the privilege to partake and channel the pure love that is imputed...(this means given to us freely as a gift from the Source) to us from God.
Just like an electrical appliance, say a refrigerator, if not plugged in to the mainstream of electricity, won't function as it was meant to be, it would mean nothing more than an object.
So are we humans, if we are not connected to the natural Source of Love then we will just function according to our "nothingness", interpreting love according to our limited individual and personal experiences in this whole creation.
Analogy and conclusion
We human beings were born perfect potentials to develop and evolve into the uniqueness of our being here in this dimension of life. For this we undergo a lot of trial and error and it's all up to us to choose to learn or to just drift into the "Slumber-land" of the living dead. Everybody would experience hardships in every phase and all areas of our development; be it lack of money, joblessness, entangled relationships, and the likes. All these are intended by the natural process of being part of the evolution and beauty of creation. The pain and difficulty are here to remind us that we had side-tracked from the original laws that govern the Beauty of Love in this whole Creation; they are here as invitations for us to go back to the essence of a life that is connected to the the Ultimate Source, God, Love, Beauty.
Conclusion;
Love therefore is pure and only those who have purity in heart that is connected (plugged in) to the Source, can experience the bliss of true love and all the good things in life that come with it; otherwise, we will just be living a dead existence; constantly experiencing broken relationships, lack, and misery.