What is love? A definition.

Before you can know what love is, we need to look at what it isn't. For starters, let's dispense with the bullshit notion of "True Love." Originally coined by the greeting card companies to make perfectly happy couples feel like getting divorced, True Love is a pointless redundancy—if someone is in love with someone, they'll be true to that person.

Love Is Never Enough : How Couples Can Overcome Misunderstandings, Resolve Conflicts, and Solve.

And by its very definition, True Love requires the existence of an equal and opposite False Love which cannot exist—if you aren't true, then you aren't in love. Sure, you could argue that what your parents pass off as love is False Love, but it's really just "bitter resentment."

Additionally, True Love implies that it's a superior form of love; better than "ordinary" love (a love apparently reserved for only the thinnest and most attractive of Hollywood celebrities). But you can't grade love on a scale from 1-to-10. You don't sort of love your girlfriend. You either love her, or you sleep with her best friend behind her back. It's an either/or proposition. Love either exists between two people, or it doesn't. It's as simple as that. Anything else is just Extreme Like. And while liking someone—finding them "pleasant or attractive"—is nothing to sneeze at, it's nothing to blow two month's salary on, either. When you're considering a life-altering decision, "Like" is no substitute for Love.

Now what people typically mean when they say they've found "True Love" is really simply visible love. Or demonstrable love. The kind of love your girl will freely admit to without your poking a gun in her back. It's love that is apparent to others and not just all in your delusional brain. Still, "apparent love" isn't necessarily Love, it just looks like Love.

Another thing that only appears to be Love, but isn't, is Lust. In many ways, Lust exhibits the same outward signs of Love; the intimate caressing, the excessive sweating, and the noisy orgasming. (A quick way to tell whether it's love or lust is by looking at your penis. If you can't see it because your girl's head in the way, it's probably Lust.)

Lust: The Seven Deadly Sins Lust is the keen desire for sex and problems arising from it.

Lust is more spontaneous than Love. While Love never happens "at first sight," Lust-at-first-sight, happens pretty much every Friday and Saturday night around Last Call. It's also known as The Drunken One-Night Stand. Sure, you may see a girl and think she's hot instantly, but you don't love her instantly. You just want to nail her until she walks funny, and that's not exactly Love. In fact, couples who say their relationship was love at first sight are flat-out lying. Why? Who knows for sure, but probably because it sounds better than "We're total slutbags who bang anything that moves." Hey, if you fall in love with some girl before you ever speak with her, you're not "impulsive" or "spontaneous," you're just "horny." You're the same kind of "romantic" who orders a Russian bride because he "felt a connection" with the catalog photo.

The main difference between the Love and Lust is that Lust lacks a critical element of "Love" namely, respect. For Love to exist in a relationship, you've both got to respect each other. You're much less likely to cheat on a girl you respect than a girl you regretted doing double-bagged.

So how do you know if you respect a girl? Easy. If you've ever told her to "shut her goddamn pie-hole" right after fucking her, you don't respect her. If you've been dating her for 9 years, you don't respect her. If you ever set a beer on her head, you don't respect her. Get the idea?

In a nutshell: Love = Attraction + Respect

To be in love, BOTH of you have to sincerely believe that you're "dating up." In other words, you BOTH have feel as though you're getting someone better than you deserve. And not just in the looks department. You have to feel that, as a person, your girlfriend is way better than all other whores you've known and treated like dirt. But the trick is, she has to feel the same way about you. The attraction and respect HAVE to be mutual.

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Finally, you both have to be fully evolved, well-adjusted adults already. You shouldn't be looking for someone to "complete you" or to fill a deficiency in yourself. Or to make you look less crazy. You're looking for a partner or a teammate (one you can fuck without it making you gay). Because healthy relationships are about "wants," not "needs". Wanting someone is a conscious decision that comes from a healthy selfishness; you're looking out for your own interests. Needing someone is a red flag that you may have abandonment issues which would benefit from weekly hour-long conversations laying on a flat leather couch.

In the end, you'll recognize actual Love when you're in it. The right kind of girl will stand head and shoulders above the rest of the whores you've nailed. Ask old couples how they knew they were in love, and they always say, "You'll just know." Because you will. It's annoying, but true. Love really feels different; better than any emotion you've experienced to date (remember, never marry the first girl you have sex with, or you'll have no basis for comparison). Certainly Love is better than that dumped feeling you got from your last relationship. But just because your Ex was the wrong kind of girl for you, doesn't mean you'll never find the right kind. In fact, it practically guarantees it—the more wrong girls you date, the more obvious the right girls become.

So don't beat yourself up about getting dumped. In all likelihood, the break up likely wasn't your fault. Which, of course, begs the next obvious question: Then whose fault was it?