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Being in love is purely a "notion potion" made up of three parts hormone and two parts "I'll be whatever I need to be in order to gain your singular attention." In reality, "in love" is the way that we describe feeling a strong physical attraction for another person when it is coupled with a psychological component often referred to as "looking at the world through rose colored glasses." It is a time when we imagine that we have found the one person in the world who perfectly completes us. It comes packaged with a believe that this newly found "love" knows our every thought and understands us better than anyone else in the world. Even more amazing, is that we have managed to discover all of this in anywhere from just moments to a few short weeks. The standard line that we often hear spoken is, "I fell in love with you from the first moment I saw you."

If you've ever fancied yourself "in love" with another person (and who hasn't?) you'll remember a time when you were in hot pursuit of that dreamy someone who made your heart beat faster and even took your breath away. Can you recall how you hung on his every word? Not only that, you thought him such an amazing specimen of the human male that although you abhor sports, you went to every single football game that season. It wasn't much of a sacrifice either, because just being with him made it all worthwhile. You probably imagined yourself "in love," but you really weren't. At that point in the relationship genuine love was just a mere possibility and maybe not even a real one, at that.

The idea of "being in love" is really more about "being in love with the idea of "being in love." (A bit confusing, isn't it?) It's a transitory stage, and one that rarely lasts beyond a few months. When we are "in love" we tend to focus on how the man or woman of our dreams will complete us and fulfill all our deepest desires. We believe that with this person in our life, we will never know a moment's unhappiness again. Unfortunately, within a few short months, unless something more enduring begins to grow, the heightened sense of arousal and heady emotional rush of "being in love" will start to diminish. When this happens we will say that we have "fallen out of love," and sadly proclaim that we no longer have feelings for this person.

Really loving someone involves making a conscious choice to invest in another human being. It means putting selfish desires aside and putting another human being first. Unlike the

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