There have been countless poems, cards, songs, and notes written in an attempt to answer the question: what is love? The reason is simple—there really is no clear answer. Love is a bit like life; it is what you make of it. Our definition of love can change hundreds of times depending on where we are. When we are in dating mode, searching for that special someone, we usually have no true understanding of love. We may think we feel it, believe we have it, and try to describe it, but we often fall short. Love comes from within us first and then extends to the things and people around us. If we don’t start at the beginning, we never make it to the end.
I believe dating is important because it allows us to transform our understanding of love. Initially, love may feel like great, wild sex with someone who makes us happy and is fun to be around. Eventually, we transition out of that mode and seek the next level of love. We find someone who understands us and respects the person we are. The experience of sex evolves from passionate to tender, and then suddenly we crave something more. This time, we look for a combination of great sex and emotional support from a partner. Once you find that person, you begin to redefine your understanding of love, realizing that something might still be missing. Perhaps you’re not as excited and jittery as you expected to be while in love.
The next stage tries to combine the best feelings from all your past relationships into one. You may move in with someone and start building a life together, only to notice that life’s responsibilities complicate the relationship. Observing how others deal with problems gives us more insights to redefine what love means. It becomes a never-ending cycle; as we learn about love through various experiences, there will always be more to gain—and sometimes more to lose.
Dating is difficult because we often have expectations of what love should be, expectations that reality can’t always meet. Once we recognize that love is an evolutionary process that constantly changes as we grow, we begin to see that love with someone else is more about compatibility. If it weren’t, we would probably marry the person who brings us the most pleasure. But love based solely on sex is as meaningless as sex without love.
When I reflect on the people I have dated, I can say that in some way, I loved them all. This was largely due to the fact that my definition of love was at a certain stage. I dated the man I eventually married for five years, and through that journey, I learned that our compatibility was what sustained us. Even now, we don’t agree on much, yet we find common ground. We have good sex sometimes, and great sex rarely. We have unreasonable expectations of each other, yet we manage to meet in the middle. Most of the time, we respect each other, even if we sometimes express our frustrations quietly. We rarely fight, laugh often, and share silly moments together. Do I love him? Absolutely! Yet I still cherish the lessons learned from my other relationships.
Do I think about old lovers? Yes, at least once a week! I miss certain things about every man I’ve been with—sexually or otherwise—because they helped shape my understanding of love. Whether people admit it or not, we all think about our past loves; they are part of what brought us to who we are now.
So, what is love? Love is the culmination of our feelings. It’s about setting standards and limits based on what your internal compass tells you. Love is finding someone who adds to your already established happiness rather than being the sole source of it. Love is about enjoying time together, whether that’s making love for three hours or three minutes. Love involves laughing at life, at each other, and just laughing in general. It’s about finding someone who can adapt with you as your understanding of love evolves.
Someone recently told me they had a three-date system for determining love. They wouldn’t sleep with someone more than three times or date for more than three months unless they were sure of their feelings. Initially, I thought this was a shallow approach to dating, but I now see it as a smart idea. We know how we feel around someone, and there’s no point in trying to force something when it comes to love. Dating is the best way to develop our own definition of love and gives us the opportunity to discover the qualities in others that resonate with our understanding.
There is no standard definition of love; those who marry for money or date for sex are entitled to their definitions and how they choose to fulfill their desires. There should be no guilt or shame associated with who we love or how we love. Marriage is not the ultimate goal of love, nor is it the definitive measure of our affections. It is simply a mixture of compatibility and compromise.
What is love? No one really knows for sure, and no one will ever be able to pinpoint it. Love is something that, if we are searching for it, will never be found because it doesn’t exist outside ourselves. Love exists in our minds, in our bodies, in our faith and gratitude, in our partners, and in our friends. Love exists in our families and in the material things we surround ourselves with. Love is the one emotion that drives us toward our future while also driving us crazy.
We should place more emphasis on loving those we are with, when we are with them, rather than searching for someone who can fulfill every need. From the moment of our birth to our last breath, we are constantly evolving and defining what love means to us. Every moment in life should be used for that purpose. By living a life filled with love, we will be rewarded with love in return.