by Sean O'Leary

Created on: January 04, 2010

"Love? Above all things, I believe in love. Love is like oxygen. Love is a many splendored thing. Love lifts us up where we belong. All you need is love." ~Ewan McGregor as Christian in "Moulin Rouge!"

You've been dating for some time now, and with Valentine's Day just around the bend you may be asking yourself, "Am I in love? Does my significant other love me? How do I identify it? Heck, what is love anyway?" Well, for starters, you won't find it in a box of chocolates, a bouquet of flowers, or a nice car. There's no special event or holiday that can bring love into your relationship, no matter what the people at Hallmark would have you believe. And you and your significant other may rock each others worlds in the bedroom, but you won't find love between the sheets either. So where is it? What is it? And how can you be sure of it?

It's true, love is difficult to identify if you've never been in love before. It often gets confused with lust or infatuation.

-Rule number 1: Love is reciprocated.

It goes both ways. Ever hear the phrase "Friendship is a two-way street?" It's true, and the same goes for love, only more so. You may profess up and down that you love him or her, but unless that person feels the same way about you you're not in love. You're infatuated. You're in love with the idea of being with that person, but you're not in love with them -the operative word here being "with." If they don't feel the same way about you as you feel about them, it's not love.

Okay, so consider for a moment the couple that has massive amounts of sex all the time. You rarely see them because they're usually locked away somewhere doing the horizontal mambo, and when you do see them, they're attached at the hip. They flirt and tease each other, and seem to be locked away in their own little world, making those around them feel as though they're missing out on some really good drugs. These two obviously feel the same about each other, right? Wrong.

-Rule number 2: Love does not require lust.

Sex, while fun, doesn't require you to love the person you're with. This is an unhappy fact which has made many an otherwise virtuous individual the victim of the proverbial one night stand. Point in fact, love actually requires little physical interaction at all. Admittedly it helps. Let's face it. Making out feels good. Petting feels even better, and sex feels absolutely great. But that's all that is. Touch. Nerve endings being stimulated. It builds to a bombastic crescendo, then it's

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