>>3395
Oh right, there can be types of love besides the romantic form of it. Forgot about that. That's why I aksed though, because else we'd copletetly misunderstand each other since there wouldn't have been a common ground to start from.
First and foremost, my opinion about love might not be my final opinion regarding that matter. Quite the countrary, as I prefer the socratic method when discussing topics without a clearly defined answer. After all, in a dialog/dicsussion one has to cinsider different points of view as well and as such think about aspects that one would've missed else.
Also, take what I say with a grain of salt as my ideas will be a priori.
So anyway, my thoughts about love:
I dismiss the idea that there are several forms of love. Loving your family is somewhat biologically imprinted into one. Take someone who meets one of their parents after they spent all of their life growing up without them. They won't suddenly like them. Rather, parents are emotionally bonding with their children after those are born. They are nothing more but bags of flesh unable to sustain themselves after all, so they require their parents attention (and as such, to be liked by them) for a long time. As children grow up, this feeling may subside, but by that point parents and children have already bonded. So I'd say it is more of a special form of friendship rather than love.
That being said, love and friendships are by no means two separate entities. I hold the belief that love may grow out of friendship. Because of this I think dating is highly toxic. you can't get to know someone enough within a few weeks to judge wether you can bond on a very deep emotional level with them.
Love is like an amplified form of friendship with some biological factors like physical attractiveness also having an effect on it. We didn't get rid of our animalistic instincts, so of course there will always be some kind of lust or mating instinct involved. However, I think we are able to go beyond that to also love on an emotional level.
As such I agree with >>3388 in that love can not be one-sided. There may be a desire to bond (emotionally and physically) with a certain individual, but it should have a separate name, as love is rather the actual bonding of two people.
So, what about romance? It is quite closely linked to love, but I'd say it is a "two sides of the medal" type of deal. while love refers to the emotional, the actual feeling Romance refers to the physical. It is showing your significant other that you care. All the ways of expressing your feelings, everything that can be "grasped", for a lack of better terms. Romantic are our actions that enable bystanders to be able to see "these people love each other".
Feel free to point out any inconsitencies or dffering opinions to this subject, I find it highly interesting.