Love is any of a number of emotions and experiences related to a
sense of strong affection. The word love can refer to a variety
of different feelings, states, and attitudes, ranging from
generic pleasure ("I loved that meal") to intense interpersonal
attraction ("I love my girlfriend"). This diversity of meanings,
combined with the complexity of the feelings involved, makes
love unusually difficult to consistently define, even compared
to other emotional states. As an abstract concept, love usually
refers to a deep, ineffable feeling of tenderly caring for
another person. Even this limited conception of love, however,
encompasses a wealth of different feelings, from the passionate
desire and intimacy of romantic love to the nonsexual emotional
closeness of familial and Platonic love to the profound oneness
or devotion of religious love. Love in its various forms acts as
a major facilitator of interpersonal relationships and, owing to
its central psychological importance, is one of the most common
themes in t