I’m not sure what love is, really.  It’s very hard to pin down, especially because there are many different kinds of love.

Familial love varies based upon your relations with your family.  Personally I’m not close with my family, and it could be said (based upon definition) that there has been some abuse within my family, especially from my mother.  I feel that there is a duty to family despite personal relations, but familial love is what your relation determines.

Platonic love for friends is something that I’ve experienced periodically, and to me it’s about understanding the bounds of your relationship and standing up to, and for your friends.  It’s about establishing that while you are on their side, that they are human as are you.  You may need to stand against them, but you do so for their benefit and yours.  Platonic love is love that establishes camaraderie and unity between people, while helping one another to work through their faults by acknowledging them and even exploiting them.

As for romantic love, I don’t really know.  Vaeyla is the closest person I’ve had to a girlfriend, and I would do most anything to see her kept happy.  Whether I do that out of ‘love’ or because I want her to be happy because I want more for her than what I have had, or what for myself I don’t know.  I have not known romantic love enough to say for sure, but I agree with the consensus that such love is the desire, and even the need to put another’s needs and happiness over your own.  It is the need to be by that person’s side, to help them with whatever problem ails them no matter the cost to yourself.  It is being made happier by seeing them made happier, whether it is you that has improved their mood or not.

Love is sacrifice, and it is beautiful.