We often hear people talk about love, the number of times they have fallen in love, how deep they have fallen, and how they can never live without their loved ones. Love is probably the most common word used globally, a word which every person in this universe is au fait with.
The real question is "What is love?" The definition varies as there are different kinds of love. The fondness through familiarity is one of the most common types, such as the love of a mother to her children, the love siblings share, or the love of grandparents to their grandchildren. Friendship is also a very strong bond existing between people who share common interests. Love can also be a strong feeling one has towards things or other creatures, like the love of kids to pets, or the passion that drives people to do certain things and as a result be successful in and finally, the greatest of all types is the romance which is the kind that longs for emotional connection between a couple .
People define love differently, some believe that the concrete pillars of a successful relationship consist of trust, respect and compromise whereas others may believe that the physical and/or verbal actions are the main basis.
I have come to learn that love is a learned skill founded by good communication skills. It starts off as limerance, or as commonly known "infatuation" where strong physical attraction takes place. In most cases, this feeling will most probably die, but it is up to us to decide whether or not it will. If we use good communication skills, which are the means by which we develop trust and intensify our connection with the other, then we have a greater opportunity to nourish this feeling and have it grow to pure love.
The more we can communicate, the more we feel understood and thus, the easier it becomes to surface all sorts of possible obstacles which arise from the differences between two people because there is always core differences between people, regardless of how close they are. The issue is to identify the differences, negotiate them so they do not create boundaries and compromise when needed.
Understanding the other and loving unconditionally is of utmost importance, a rule we should all keep in mind no matter how different our definition of love is, because the question will always remain "What is love?" and only then will we be capable of confidently saying that there is no right or wrong when defining love because people are different, they view love differently and have different ways of expressing it, and just because someone does not love you the way you want them to doesn't mean that they do not love you with all they have.
