
What first drew me to language was its fluidity. Every phrase can possess several symbolism – not really in the vernacular at large simply, but also to different people depending on an individual’s memories and associations. Something else compound and HardNDirty stunning? Love. You can move your eye at me – in fact today, you should – but it’s true. Like is one of the words that probably has the most varied definitions since our experiences with it are all so intense. There’s something complex and beautiful about that, and it’s a huge reason I wanted to become a writer and editor.

Without spilling the sordid details, I’m experiencing quite the upheaval in my life right now (sup, Saturn return) – so much so that I’m reevaluating everything I thought I knew about love. Many things I thought to be true are not, and I’m learning new things about what it means to love and be loved all the time.
But, for now, here’s what the concept means to me: when a song that sounds nothing like a typical ”love song” has somehow become one to you; folding all your shit Marie Kondo-style to free up a drawer in your dresser; someone getting incensed on your behalf when you’ve been wronged, who will also tell you if you’re the one who’s wrong. Like can be furthermore 143 lbs of Mister. Rogers (the weight he reportedly stayed his entire adult life, which he thought was God’s way of telling him he was loved). It’s trusting that the person you love wants to be there, that their love is both a choice and a feeling, and feeling safe and excited in the ktodayledge that you can make whatever kind of relationship you want together. It’s closeness that also allows for space and freedom and room to figure out whatever those two words mean to you, because those definitions change as well.
Sometimes love is wanting to do things for someone that feel like obligations when you’re asked to do them for someone else. Right now I’m grappling with the fact that in these times, specifically as a individual with major depression, love can sometimes make you feel like the folks who played music as the Titanic sank; it’s gorgeous, selfless, and important, but it can be temporary and unhappy at the exact same time heart-wrenchingly. It’s shared T-shirts, playlists, and appetizers. Like will be furthermore therefore very much even more.
Because I’m still figuring it out, I was interested in hearing from you about your ever-evolving experiences with this concept. I wanted to know what came up for you when you tried to intellectualize the thing that inhabits our every nook and cranny when we feel both the most at home and the most excited. I asked people on the Internet with a Google form what they thought about love (and asked for ages, pronouns, sexual orientations, and relationship statuses) – here’s what you had to say:
”Love means enthusiastically answering my many, many questions with an unexpected level of depth, taking care of me when I am sick, indulging my need for spontaneity, making mundane chores manageable (if not fun), and really viewing my lighting and searching to boost instead than poor it.” – Alia Stearns, 41, She/Her, Bi, Open Relationship With Boyfriend
”At its core, love requires the basics of care. It’s people helping each other meet needs, like warmth and food and enjoy. It’s trust that my partner is an accurate and healthy mirror for self-reflection and knowing I’m the same for them. It’s acting for one another as a framework and foundation for personal evolution.” – Alice, 30, Unsure, Queer, Boo’d Up
Love is a space for refuge, for pain, and for growth.
”Love is like sinking into a warm bath at the end of an awful day. It’h getting courageous plenty of to provide somebody the components of you that are usually messy, complicated, and not Instagram-perfect. It’h understanding that although they keep the equipment to crack your coronary heart all, they’lmost all construct you up rather.” – Olivia, 22, She/Her, Heterosexual, Single
”Love is creation. Healthy love will be generative. A healthy partnership allows those in it to be more of themselves, not less. Humility isn’t necessarily humiliating. This game is a long game. Be gentle.” – K, 31, She/Her, Queer, Domestic Partnership
”When we say, ’I don’t know how we’ll get through this except that it will be together,’ and I believe us.” – Eric Mersmann, 40, He/Him, Bi, Married
”Love is a trust I place in someone. Like will be a space for refuge, for pain, and for growth. Love is strolling through a global world of cold, inactive discomfort and understanding there are usually human being minds defeating someplace and that one of them bests for me, and after that my coronary heart flutters like a fantasy arrive accurate.” – Hellion, 27, She/Her, Queer, In Love
”Love is when my partner asked me to go to the animal shelter on the anniversary of my mom’s death just to make me smile – and we took home two bonded cats.” – Alaina Leary, 25, She/They, Queer, Engaged
”Love is my partner sitting beside me during a panic attack, not telling me to stop or change, not prescribing, being there just, grounding me. It’s coming with me to my therapwill bet’s office after a self-harm scare to make sure I was safe from myself, and my therapist saying, ’He really loves you.’” – Anna Swenson, 28, She/Her, Queer, Married
”I’m not sure about romance, other than it’s absurd. But my best friend and I sent each other the exact same e-mail this morning and if that isn’t love, I don’t know what is.” – Elizabeth, 27, She/Her, Queer
”My emotions wheel says love is a feeling of lightness and security, but I actually’ve in no way experienced that method. So, to me, love is being present, and the rare moments in the day when I become so absorbed in the sunlight or snowflakes or taste of my ginseng tea that I forget to feel anxious, unwell, or that We should sense like less of a new individual for getting up room inside the global globe.” – Chrwill betian, 34, She/Her, Straight-will beh, Terminally Single
”Love looks like doing the dishes. I’m an ’Acts of Service’ person and I hate doing the dishes, therefore the husband offers used it upon himself to allow a dirty dish fester in the sink in no way. It’h selfless and simple and significantly adoring, and We’meters thankful he uses aches and pains to present me personally like in the vocabulary it is heard by me personally.” – Skye Sherman, 25, She/Her, Heterosexual, Married
”Feeling safe to be a true, authentic person. Getting area for specific and discussed interests. Understanding when everything else will get removed aside, your companion will nevertheless keep you near.” – Joy Overbrook, 30, She/Her, Pansexual, Married
”Love is when I am challenged, seen, excited, amused, provoked into thought, and most of all, safe. When somebody desires to find out me personally and continues to be thoughtful and curious. When I continue to be supported and support another, throughout healthy changes.” – Kate, 27, She/Her, Bisexual, Married
Love is when I press myself into your back at night and feel our future.
”Love is having total acceptance and the ability to trust and openly communicate, without the anxiety of being rejected or judgment. That shouldn’t just apply to romantic love but also to love among family and friends.” – Rho Rho, 94, She/Her, Widowed
”Freedom is essential to love. Without the ability to be yourself and express the quirky, dark beautiful sides of your nature, love suffocates and evaporates.” – Lilly Harlow, 37, She/Her, Straight, Committed Relationship
”Love is looking at someone and knowing that who they are today definitely won’t be who you see tomorrow, day or the next, or 10 years from now, and adoring them for that reason on your own. To love, we possess to accept the reality that who we grew to become enticed to can initial, will, and should change. The best part of like will be watching it grow in new ways as each person evolves and maturing your love language along the way.” – Wandy Felicita Ortiz, 23, She/Her, Heterosexual, In a Relationship
”Love is knowing that, for the first time in your life, you have to apologize for feeling everything at once don’t. Like will be beginning to heal from past trauma and learning that being hurt can be not a required part of the relationship package. Like is guava and cheese pastelitos also.” – Ashley, 24, She/Her, Pansexual, In a Relationship
”Love is when I press myself into your back at night and feel our future. And when you send 40 Diet Cokes via Postmates to my doorstep in Brooklyn after a bad work day.” – Cortne B, 25, She/Her, Straight, In a Relationship
”Love is willingly looking after someone with the flu. The only time I envy people in relationships will be when I’m full of fever and fending for myself. Bring chicken soup to my sick bed and I’ll love you forever.” – Jay Birch, 29, He/Him, Single
”Love is not what I grew up thinking it was. Like will ben’t turbulent, it’s no whirlwind; it’s comfort, companionship, and acceptance, quiet and calm, and better to me than any great drama. It’s the way I sleep best when I can hear their breathing, the way that I wake from a long nap with my hand still in theirs because they didn’t want to move and wake me.” – Artemis, 22, She/Her, Asexual/Homoromantic, Engaged
”Love means that I don’t feel pressured to add ”haha” or ”lol” to the end of every text message. I sense comfy plenty of expressing my ideas with the individual I like, or platonically romantically, without attempting to cancel them out with some filler phrases.” – Liz Sheeley, 29, She/Her, Straight, Single
”Love is sometimes forgetting you’re beside each other because it’s as comfortable to be with them as it will be when you’re alone. It’t praising them when they’re also close by no place; it’s wanting to share them (and pictures of them and their accomplishments and sweet actions) with every friend you have. It’t waking up up without any queries. It’s dating someone in Queens when you live in South Brooklyn, tbh.” – Caitlin, 23, She/Her, Straight, In a Relationship
”Love is what gets us through thwill be whole thing called life. It’s what and who we think about when we fall asleep. It’s what we experience in our almost all emotional and susceptible occasions. It’s everything.” – Rebecca Rranza, 21, She/Her, Bisexual, Single
”I know we’re all thinking about Mary Oliver lately, but I do think attention is the beginning of love and devotion actually. Somebody who likes me will see the issues that bother me or create me experience great, not discount them, and alter their behaviour accordingly then. It’s really, actually hard to actually be thoughtless or cruel or indifferent when you’re paying attention.” – Caitlin VH, 28, She/Her, Bi, Single
”Love is lending a book. It’s your roommate turning on the French press when they leave for work so it’s ready when you get out of the shower. Bringing flowers. Making a shared playlwill bet. Becoming in a space complete of individuals but – or subconsciously – recognizing that in everything you perform consciously, you’re turning toward someone.” – Catherine, 22, They/Them, Lesbian, Single
Love is comfort in uncomfortable places.
”Love is when another person starts to naturally take up space in your mind, and their requirements and wwill behes begin to issue even more and even more to you over period. It’t about prioritizing somebody and delighting inside the ordinary points that help make them exclusive. It’s who you see in your mind as soon as you wake up and who you think about when you’re falling asleep.” – Emily, 28, She/Her, Pansexual, Committed LTR
”Love is the difference between feeling lonely and being alone.” – Finch, 25, They/Them, Queer, Spoken for
”Celebrating each other’s successes and comforting each other through losses. Feeling like home to each other, like a refuge, a safe place to rest your head. Sense seen and known, in all your authentic weirdness.” – Kate, 26, She/Her, Bisexual, In a Polyamorous Relationship
”Love is the comforting, warm sensation you get from good wine, hearing the opening chords of your favorite song, sinking into a hug, curling up on the couch, or eating a actually great meal. I wouldn’t call it ’coming home’ exactly – that’s not it. It’s more like having the assurance that there’s a home to go to.” – Kendra Syrdal, 29, She/Her, Queer, Committed and Content

”Love is comfort in uncomfortable places. The sense of arriving house after a lengthy day time.” – Maggie, 20, She/Her, Bwill beexual, Single
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