ASU Attempts: Finding (Not Really) the Answer to Love

Recently I’ve discovered what love is. Kind of.

I decided to take on the journey of finding the answer to one question: What is love? At first, I wasn’t quite sure whether to label it into a romance type of love or in general, so I went for option three—winging it.

Well okay, maybe not quite. It was more of me being curious to what exactly people would answer without any context. I wanted a genuine answer, something that they wouldn’t think too hard about because sometimes, we are the most honest when we allow our brain to blurt out the first thing we think (although I myself probably do that way too much).

By the end of my week-long discovery, I finally had my answers in the form of seven people, one for each day. They were all women of different ages because I was curious to see if there were any differences or similarities. And let me tell you, there was definitely a variety.

A 26-year-old said love was her daughter. A 20-year-old told me it was as complicated as…well, let’s say heck for now. An 18-year-old explained it’s making someone coffee but tasting it beforehand to make sure it’s good. There were many others who gave answers such as compromise and sacrifice, but there was one that made me wonder.

She was a 55-year-old woman and at first she gave me a good hard look and then laughed. She thought the question was a bit silly but answered it anyway.

She said, “It’s something we all feel in a different form. We don’t all feel it the same.”

And well, I smiled because it reminded me of something I read a long time ago by F. Scott Fitzgerald. He once said, “There are all types of love in this world but never the same love twice.”

I told myself to hold on to that because it was one of the truest things I read. But of course, being a confused teenager and now a crazy college student, I’ve forgotten it along the way.

Lately, I’ve found myself going back to someone who thinks everything has an answer to it because in my mind if there’s one perfectly stable explanation for something then I can understand it and obtain it.

Unfortunately, that’s not how life works. Especially with love. No surprise I kind of forgot that.

It’s just such a strange thing once I think about it. We put all this effort and affection for someone and do that for so long that it can last for years. Whether it’s family, friends, or significant others, we find it inside ourselves to care so much for someone, that we find a way to function with them. It’s pretty incredible.

And something so unexplainable like love probably can’t have one true definition. It can be making the best coffee for someone, or a parent’s love for their child, or just something so complicated all we can do is shrug and roll with it.

Love is always going to be up to what each of us define it to be. Whatever we believe it to be, that’s exactly what’ll it be. So I guess I kind of did but didn’t find the answer to what love is. Don’t we all love a good paradox?

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