Message from the whole Lemmy community: we hate you for having inb4-ed our collective standard joke answer.

Signed: everyone but you 😜

English is kind of weak in this arena because we only have one word for love, but we can modify it to be more useful: romantic love and fraternal love. Any other use stems from these two, and will basically boil down to “I like ___a lot.”

Another specification is when people ask “Do you love them, or are you in love with them?”

“In love” means romantic love, I think. You want to spend your life with this person, probably every day, will overlook their faults and are enamored with the things they do, the way their brain works, etc.

I love lamp 🤷🏻‍♂️

I think of romantic love as what follows infatuation, if you get there. The continued slow burn of lust, affection and respect for each other.

Friendly love is care, when you would let yourself be hurt to save a specific other person from being hurt, and are willing to be inconvenienced to do things for them, and trust enough to inconvenience them if you need something.

Agape - love, love for the world, is both easier and harder to feel. It’s easier to not be annoyed by things and people you don’t personally know, but hard to care so much about them. That universal love feeling , the joy of existence and care for the natural world is also love.

So yeah English in this regard just doesn’t have (or doesn’t use) different words for different types of love but they are different.

Baby do-oh…

Never mind.

You explained it all. What is your question.

Many people use the word without reflecting on how they mean to use it. I’ve seen many a relationship fight indirectly over the ambiguity.

Different cultures have different takes but greek and Latin define different forms of love. From impulsive maddening love (why cupids arrow was seen so harmful) to dutiful love (the kind made through obligations made through shared commitments and aspirations) to brotherly love (trauma bonds, solidarity, commitment made from shared respect). There is also paternalistic love formed from empathy and a desire to protect. And of course love to describe the deep joy something gives you and desire to have it again.

When they ask “do you love her?” Based on the context I assume either or both love as a desire for the other or dutiful love, because both can be consuming for many and mean they would struggle to have that the capacity to share that same level of love with their current partner.

If they don’t and it was an act of lust* or curiosity then they’re partner may feel more comfortable with the commitment to them.

• impulsive love and desire can be heavily intertwined with sexual desire but that is a whole other interesting discussion to me

For love as a standalone word, “value” is the most drop-in-compatible word. To say “i love you” is to say “i value you”.

The form of “in love” is a far greater mystery to me, and i usually just consider the speaker to mean something like “obsessed” or “infatuated”.

Love is action.

You don’t feel love, you show it and recognize when it’s been shown to you. Saying you love someone is just words, but showing you love someone by listening when they need someone to listen or helping them in some other way is proof of love.

You answered your own question. It means different things to different people at different times. To know what people mean you must use your basic language comprehension skills or ask them for clarification.

Baby don’t hurt me.

Howard Jones did a pretty good song dealing with this exact issue in the 80s

It’s how we bundle together stuff we enjoy with sexual desire and sell it as moral goodness.

I think it means you would go above and beyond for the object of your love.

Also I heard this somewhere and I agree: “Being loved gives you strength. Loving someone gives you courage.”