What is love, really? Is it admiration, desire, or something deeper we cannot define? Often, we confuse admiration with love. We fall for movie stars, teachers, idols, a popular senior at school or work or anyone we can look up to, mistaking the spark of admiration for the depth of love. It seems so natural to blend the two, but is it truly love, or just the awe of seeing something extraordinary in another person?
Love takes countless forms, yet our minds often categorize it into two rigid boxes: sexual and non-sexual, platonic or amorous. When we love our friends for their warmth and support, it’s labeled as friendship. Ignoring homosexuality for a second, two girls sharing deep friendship are idolised as sisters and two boys in a very strong bond are called bromancing. But when affection grows too strong in the typical heterosexual eyes, the same possibly platonic friendship with opposite sex is suggested to be deep romantic unrealized love. Why are we in such a hurry to define and box every bond?
Are we genetically programmed to seek closure? Perhaps uncertainty unsettles us. Living in the moment is uncomfortable when we don’t know where it’s heading. If we find happiness with more than one person, society brands the person as frivolous, a philanderer. If we focus on one person too much, we’re called obsessed. Why are we so desperate to label love, to control it, to make it fit into neat categories?
How, then, can anyone be sure of themselves when it comes to love? At what point in life does clarity come? How many years must we live before we understand what love truly means?
Look around, and you’ll see that after money, love is what we’re always chasing. But no single kind of love seems enough. We crave the unconditional love of parents and siblings, the camaraderie of friends, and the intimacy of romantic relationships. Yet, we also hope to find one person—a soulmate—who can fulfill all these needs. Does this mean we instinctively know love has many layers? Is it revealing that not all feelings labeled as love are the same?
Love is called the greatest emotion, but why is it so entangled with want? Is wanting someone the same as loving them? Or is giving the true essence of love? When I see goodness in someone which nobody else can, making them a special person from just an ordinary person in my life, is that love? If I don’t particularly like someone but still can’t bear to let go of them, is that love—or moral responsibility? When did love, supposedly limitless, become confined by ethics and boundaries?
Am I giving too much importance to love? Perhaps. But all I know is that I enjoy unraveling its mysteries. The questions it raises are as infinite as the emotion itself. Love remains the most beautiful, perplexing puzzle of all.