Krehbiel 1
Jacob Krehbiel
Mrs. Hayes
Comp 2
27 Feb. 2013
What is Love? What is love? Everyone at one time or another has felt love, for another person, a pet, or a inanimate object in their lives. But, what does love really mean? Merriam-Webster's dictionary defines love as "a (1) : strong affection for another arising out of kinship or personal ties (2) : attraction based on sexual desire : affection and tenderness felt by lovers (3) : affection based on admiration, benevolence, or common interests b : an assurance of affection ." There are many types of love that we feel and different types of intensity of our love towards other things or people. Some people may search their whole lives for the feeling of love. Not knowing the feeling or what it means. So what is really love? Love in a dictionary is defined blandly and is to generalized, but easy to understand. The generalization of the word love, demeans it’s true feel in someones heart. Because love is a feeling it has many interpretations. What I may feel to be love, someone else may feel it to be infatuation or the other way around. So how does one tell the difference between love and infatuation? How is it possible to interpret the difference between romantic love and love shared between friends? In order for us to distinguish between romantic love and friendship love, we must first understand romantic love and friendship love.

Krehbiel 2 Romantic love is often based off the difference of friendship love. There is no true definition of romantic love. An example of this being: would you kiss your friend? Some people would answer yes, but most people would answer no. Although, it is not always the kissing or anything else one does with a romantic partner that makes the love romantic. Even though, romantic love can be confused with infatuation, romantic love is more consuming of all the partners lives. Romantic lovers are always on each others minds and the lovers usually make decisions according to the other lover. Romantic love also affects the mind because it can guide the way a person thinks, right or wrong. Romantic love is an uncontrollable desire to always have their lover forever. William Shakespeare, one of the greatest play writer for describing the feeling of love, basically describes it as being drunk. That the feeling of romantic love will take over all the senses of a person, and can also change someones outlook on life. Some people will describe someone that’s in a romantic love to have a “permanent smile,” and the person is extremely hard to make blue. This I can agree with because I am experiencing romantic love and it is very difficult to make me upset. Romantic love is a feeling that is very hard to describe. Because, the feeling is so joyous and happy. The romantic lover that I have is always on my mind. I find myself worrying and wanting to know if she is okay all the time because I care so much about her. Which is why I understand why people work so hard to find romantic love, instead of being content with friendship love.

Krehbiel 3 Friendship love is more of a milder type of love. It does not consume someones thoughts every moment of the day like romantic love. Although friendship love can turn into romantic love, just like it has in my life. But, in accordance to history, it can often ruin the relationship. It is hard for friends to become romantic lovers and then go back to friends because it is awkward. How is romantic love more powerful than friendship? Friendship love can be strong, but it is the overpowering emotional feeling of romantic love that changes the friendship. Friendship love doesn’t have the same “guidelines” that romance love seems to have. Two friends that have friendship love may have another type of friendship love with someone else. Which we all know is not a good idea to have two different romantic loves with two different