Okay, now that's pretty spooky! I logged on here to write a post with the title above and what should I see on the right-hand side of the page but a post with exactly the same title! I think that serendipity would approve and demand that I link to the other post, so you can see it at http://jofrank.blog.co.uk/
However, I'm not sure that I agree with jofrank's definitions of love but then I'm not sure how I would define it either. The thing is, we tend to relate all of our experiences to previous ones. The way our brain functions is to compare each instance to situations we've experienced previously to tell us how to react.
For example, you can tell if a stranger is being friendly or not by reviewing all the times you have met people in the past and comparing the behaviour of the stranger to those who turned out to be friendly and those who turned out to be hostile.
It would seem that our brain functions on extrapolation, comparison and deduction. All of our previous experiences dictate how we will respond in any given situation. I think it could be argued that our progression to maturity is simply one of encountering enough situations to provide us with our own preferred set of learned responses to any situation.
As kids, we learn about what is dangerous and what is safe quite quickly. When a child first falls from a bit of a height, or touches a stinging nettle, it learns that those situations are potentially hazardous and adjusts its behaviour in line with the information from previous similar situations.
But what about love? Where do we learn about that? Of course, here I am talking about romantic love rather than the paternal or familial love that children hopefully experience from day one.
As teenagers, we may suddenly experience an attraction that we haven't come across before. It may take the form of a crush on a teacher, a classmate or a friend of the family but, most of the time, the teenager will steadfastly define this attraction as love.
As adults, we may smile knowingly when we find out about that situation because our experience tells us that it's highly likely that this attraction is temporary and will fade with time. We know this because, chances are, we have been through something similar ourselves and it faded for us in the end.
So here is my question. How do we know what real love is. I mean the love that they talk about in books and films and poems? Surely to understand the emotion fully, we must experience it several times and be able to use those past experiences as a guide?
Ok, let's assume that what I just wrote is correct. Let's also assume (by virtue of it being quite true) that I am wondering if I am in love with someone at the moment. How do I know if what I feel is the 'Real Deal' that we read so much about.
I know that there are bound to be those who will say 'if you have to ask then it's not love' or 'when it's love, you just know'. I appreciate that they may have a point and the reason that I can't see this is that I have never been in love.
However, if you had asked me when I was 16 if I was in love I would have said 'yes' without any hesitation. I was in love (as I saw it) with one of my teachers and there was no way I would have entertained any other possible explanation.
These days, (15 years later) I myself would probably dismiss it as 'a crush' but what does that phrase really mean? I'm not sure that the strength of those feelings I had back then have ever been surpassed. Does that mean I really was in love - or that it was 'just' a crush and I have never been in love since?
About two years ago, I came out of an eight-year relationship. Surely I must have been in love in such a serious coupling? The honest answer is, I don't know. I said 'I love you' a lot, and I think that I really and truly believed it when I said it for the first 5 years or so.
What haunts me is that if that were real love, why could it eventually dissipate. Why is it that I now don't feel any of those things for that person that I was so keen to call love?
Surely if love is the thing that, to paraphrase Philip Larkin, promises to solve and satisfy and set unchangeably in order then I shouldn't have been able to lose it so easily?
And here I am again, at the start of something with somebody new. As I write this, I am sure that I feel as much for her now as I did for anyone that came before and yet I am reluctant to tell her I love her.
Please don't mistake this reluctance for reticence, or mere lack of commitment. It isn't that at all. It's more a fear - a fear that if what I have had before was love then, frankly, love isn't all it's cracked up to be; it can wither and die like even the most beautiful of roses.
The alternative is that I have never been in love in my life and that is why I lack certainty. That is not a happy thought. At 31, I really think I should have come across Real Love at some stage - for God's sake, if not now, when?
I do realise that I may be making this situation unnecessarily complicated for myself, but I still find myself thinking of the chapter entitled 'Parenthesis' in Julian Barnes' wonderful book 'Around The World in 10&1/2 Chapters'. Mr Barnes argues that the words 'I love you' have such power, and are bandied about so meaninglessly that they should be put behind a protective glass front; like the emergency stop on a train, they are only to be used when it's absolutely necessary!
Am I in love or not? I have found the words on the tip of my tongue several times in the last week, but each time I've remained silent because I'm not sure that what I feel is really different from those other times in the past.
I'm not asking you if you think I'm in love - for how could you know? You don't know me, you don't know her, you don't know the first thing about us. This could be my third time in love, it could be the nothing of the sort.
If only we were taught in school what love was and how to deal with it! In fairness, if that were the case we may not be able to recall the Battle of Hastings (1066) or Einstein's Theory of Relativity (Energy equals mass times the speed of light squared) but at least we'd know where our hearts were at 3.00 a.m. in a dark and restless bedroom (I have no idea).
Your guess is as good as mine...