by Olivia Emisar

Created on: December 14, 2009

True love is like marriage in the sense that it needs to be defined by the individuals involved with the expectation that the meaning attributed to true love is identical for both of them, or a close facsimile thereof.  The definition of true love changes with knowledge and experience, a child in middle school could swear that s(he) has found true love once a week in different people.  

The fact is that the kid in middle school is not necessarily wrong, no matter how much we tend to patronize someone who finds "true" love once a week with different people.  This kid, is actually learning to define what love is and these other people he swears s(he) is in love with actually have something in common that s/he find themselves attracted to.  It could be a personality trait, or a certain life attitude that shines through, but it is a consistency that he values and probably what (s)he will be attracted to as an adult in search for his/her perfect partner. 

Since there are so many variables involved, the definition of what "true love" is, is best left to the individual asking the question because love is very subjective and incredibly personal.  Love is defined from childhood, by the way we feel about others and the way others makes us feel.  Love changes, it grows; it morphs into a myriad of forms that help us retain relationships even when the nature of the relationships has changed drastically.  For instance, we know people who were madly in love, got married, got divorced and they are still each other's best friends.  

Their relationships changed and so did the nature of their love, if we were to ask them if they love their ex-partner, their answer would be a resounding "yes!".  If we asked them if what they had felt before was true love, they would also respond in the affirmative, because at that time, it was true love to both of them. 

If what we are asking is "does true love last forever?" the answer is also yes, because true love is not rigid, it transforms itself into what is needed at the time, including protectiveness, filial love, sibling love, unquestionable friendship.  Love is not perfect, it is just a state of mind and a way of feeling. 

Some very loose ways to recognize true love:

 *1.  It feels right all the time.

*2.  You are happy all the time.

*3.   Problems have solutions and you are not terribly bothered by problems.

*4.  You want to spend the rest of your life in this state of mind and feeling.

*5.  You can't imagine life without your partner (or a different one)

*6.  You have become "us" instead of "me".

*7.   When you get home, it truly feels like "home" because s/he is there.

*8.   When you miss him/her you miss the essence of who they are, not what they look like.

*9.   You wish you had found each other sooner, so you could have had "this thing" a lot longer.

*10.  You feel love, you are in love and you can't define it for anyone else because feelings cannot be explained to anyone's full satisfaction, they can only be experienced and the experience is purely personal and subjective. 

 For some of us, true love means being at peace within ourselves and in our relationships, because when we feel that peace, we are feeling love in its fully developed form and we would not trade that peace in our homes with anyone or for anything in the world.

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