Defining LOVE

Being in love with someone means nothing if you don't know why you love them. I guess we all love for different reasons, for some it maybe superficial, or material, based on what that person can do for you (financial). However if it's true love, love for happiness, someone you find solace in or helps you find inner peace within yourself, even though thats still something acquired or gained through that love it may still be pure. That person helps you become a better person. There are different kinds of love, different levels. Some say love grows on people if you stay with someone long enough, others say if someone doesn't ever truly love you on their own the love, even if it comes is never truly genuine. So what exactly is real love? Is it unconditional? Loving someone through thick and thin? Is love sometimes pleasure and other times pain? Allowing them to treat you bad? Working through countless infidelities or mistrust? What is the limit for heartache from someone you love? Who decides that? How does love get to a point where it's no longer love? Why do people fall out of love? Everyone has a different interpretation of love. No one thing governs what we as individuals think love is. You can't force your love onto someone else. They'll never love you the same way you love them. Someone always loves stronger or has loved longer. Love supposedly knows no boundaries, knows no limits. Sometimes we want someone to love us so much that we perceive things to be love just to grasp the feeling. Love is a deadly force that can be detrimental and toxic. It can build you up to be the greatest or break you down to your weakest point. Some say you haven't really loved until you've been hurt. Through my own exploration with love, trying to define it, understand and live with it I've sometimes found myself wondering if it's worth loving at all. The people I've loved the most have always have been the ones to hurt me and I'm left to regroup, pick up the pieces and begin again. Those are the only ones that can hurt you though, the ones you've given a piece of your heart to. That's the risk that comes along with loving. No one can control love, it's an uncontainable force. We can't help who we love, even if they don't love us back or have hurt us before. The heart wants what the heart wants. Humans need love to thrive because without it where do we find hope, faith and contentment? So do we live to find love or should we learn to live without it?