How do YOU know when you love (or think you love) someone? What do you think "makes" us love someone?

@ette_ it is a profound question. How do you know when you love someone? If we disregard the physiological aspects (endorphins etc.), for me it is when I realise I WANT to see the person. I mean really want to see them. I miss them when they aren’t there. I want them to be in my life and I worry about them and care what happens to them. When I feel protective of them and want to make sure they are safe. I would put my own life in jeopardy to protect them. When they walk in the room and I feel happier (this still happens for me after 10 years).

I imagine it is different for everyone and different people will have a different way of categorising what makes them think they are in love. It definitely transcends that hot, urgency of that first infatuation. For me love, real love (and this can apply to people other than my SO) is deeper than that. I suppose I have faith in it. I’m not wondering if it will end tomorrow because I know my partner. I trust him.

What MAKES us love someone… wow .. if we knew the answer to that one we could both be very rich. It makes no sense. I have fallen in love with people I would never have expected to. You know .. I love tall men.. so why did I marry someone 5’8 the first time round? (second time 6’2). So it isn’t looks necessarily. I think it eventually comes down to an emotional connection but all the ducks and drakes are in place too and it just works. Why???? No idea. Ette_ big question and I am not sure I did a great job of answering it.

I thought I loved my husband when I married him.

I knew I loved him when I stood by his side at his lowest moment, and when he forgave me at my lowest moment.

Do you openly fart in front of him? No? You don’t love him then :)

@sliceswiththings haahhahaa! Thanks for the laugh I totally needed that!

True love can only be for one person and as I have loved more than one I wonder whether what I felt was really true love, though it felt like it at the time. Love is such a vague word, there is love for a woman, love for parents and love for your child and all use the same word. When someone becomes a part of you, a part that makes you happy then that is love.

@sliceswiththings… must be true love for me then…

You can love many people and for many reasons.
Most of us want love and want to be loved.

If you are asking the question about shared mutual love then it is a feeling you have in your gut, deep inside. It makes you do things that you never thought you could or would do. You have a deep desire to do things for this person and to support them. You are joyous just to be together. You hear songs in a different way because they are in your life.
You feel it in return.
You can talk about any subject and are not embarrassed with the odd topic ones. You open yourself to that person both emotionally and physically.
So many more and it deepens when it is felt in return.
Said so well in the poem by Rumi – Looking for your face:

From the beginning of my life
I have been looking for your face
but today I have seen it

Today I have seen
the charm, the beauty,
the unfathomable grace
of the face
that I was looking for

Today I have found you
and those who laughed
and scorned me yesterday
are sorry that they were not looking
as I did

I am bewildered by the magnificence
of your beauty
and wish to see you
with a hundred eyes

My heart has burned with passion
and has searched forever
for this wondrous beauty
that I now behold

I am ashamed
to call this love human
and afraid of God
to call it divine

Your fragrant breath
like the morning breeze
has come to the stillness of the garden
You have breathed new life into me
I have become your sunshine
and also your shadow

My soul is screaming in ecstasy
Every fiber of my being
is in love with you

Your effulgence
has lit a fire in my heart
for me
the earth and sky

My arrow of love
has arrived at the target
I am in the house of mercy
and my heart
is a place of prayer

True Love is this,,,

When a person is down and there is a determination in your heart to lift them up higher..

then it matters little who they are, what they did, are doing or will do..

That determination motivates you..

Because that is who you are to them..

You are love.

On a primal level one can tell by the smell. I have never found anything as intoxicating as the way my fiance’ smells. On a more practical level I echo @jonsblond‘s sentiments; we have stuck by one another at our worst and our best and still want none but each other. When it is real, true, lasting love you know it.

You know you love someone for certain when a piece of you is missing when you are apart, and you get butterflies in your stomach when you are together again.
The last piece of the jigsaw is in place.

Personally, I don’t believe there is such a thing as “true love.” I think that you can fall in love with someone, and also love other people. You could even feel those “falling” feelings for more than one person at once.

Love is not a zero-sum game, I think. Love builds. It’s not like you only have so much love in your body or soul, and with that is poured into one person, there’s no room for anyone else.

I think love can be healing. Very healing. I know it has saved me, and when I try to give my best responses to questions here, it is the love to try to help folks heal that drives me. It’s not like that for all questions for me, but it is for many, and sometimes there are a dozen of us doing the same thing—all for someone we don’t know, and in a way, we are all loving each other at the time.

Practicality, though, is an important issue. It’s difficult to have long distance relationships. It’s difficult to love someone for any length of time without expressing that love physically (well, it is for me).

I think that anyone who can tell you what love is is deluded. Love is probably different for every person. If you think it is love, it is love. If you let other people persuade you that it wasn’t love, then it wasn’t love.

What are the signs of love? When you think about someone whenever you have a spare moment, and it brings a smile to your face and a tingle to your body. When you look for their face first wherever you are meeting. When you want to share all your secrets, knowing they will understand. When you want to show them all your favorite things When you want to get away and be on your own with them whenever possible. When you love talking to them. When are excited to be in their presence, when you feel great compassion for them, when you want them to do whatever is best for them, even if it is not good for you….

Ok, those are my signs. Your signs may be different. Don’t measure yourself against my standards. It is best to ask people what was happening when they thought they were in love; not for any absolute standard. Ain’t none of those.

Everyone is different. I knew I was in love with my husband when the world went silent for me. Nothing else mattered as much as he did. We would sit in a car or go to mcdonalds for breakfast or just walking down the street hand in hand, I realized that everything around us seemed silent. Just heard the sound of our voices. We were both oblivious to others around us whenever we were together. Everyword we said to each other just seemed to make us closer. We couldn’t stop talking to each other and the best part was we were totally open about everything without fear of rejection.
Best way to describe it, was I felt like I met my soul mate. Someone who could I felt I could tell him everything both good and bad without fear of judgement of any kind.
When I told him about my epilepsy, he didn’t even flinch. Just asked me about it and then said it was no big deal. He didn’t treat me like a fragile doll, or jump ship or like I held some terrible secret from him. He continued to treat me the same as he did 5 minutes before I told him. Found out later that when I told him, he was sitting there thinking about how happy he was I shared something so private with him. He was overjoyed that I trusted him so much with something I rarely told people about me.