> Got some questions for you guys on what you think love is. Don't limit yourself to just thinking of this in terms of romantic love... Think deep and offer reasons for your answers :)

I'm a big fan of the biblical use of "love," that derived from the Greek "agapé," which is unconditional and an action, not a feeling. You love your spouse when you fulfill his or her needs, even on those days when you just don't feel like doing what needs to be done. You love your family when you treat them with respect and do what you can do to strengthen them and foster constructive and harmonious relationships.

Interestingly, the biblical commandment to "love thy neighbor" suddenly becomes quite practical with this definition, where the modern attachment of the word "love" to a feeling can make it much more difficult, yet less meaningful. When love is an action rather than an emotion, you can absolutely love someone you don't necessarily like.

When people say "I love you," it's not a lie, but it's not a use of this definition of love, either, which is almost always self-evident by demonstration. But there's nothing wrong with that. wintermute's definition of love is a wonderful encapsulation of the emotional component of this picture. His definition and the one above have a tendency to go hand-in-hand, although I won't speculate whether it's the chicken or the egg that comes first.

The problem I see with discussions like these is the implication that there can be only one true definition of "love." I named the one I most valuable to me and the one I most aspire to, but I don't nitpick with other usages of it unless I see love being used in an aberrent, selfish kind of way -- as wim said, confused with lust or affection.

The Greeks had three or four different words for love, a different one for different types of love. "Agapé" is just one. How English wound up with only one, I don't know, but if the Eskimos can have forty-stupid words for "snow"* then English ought to be able to tolerate a few different definitions for the one word for "love" we've got.

(*True in essence, but the figure is exaggerated as an urban legend.)