This is a miscellaneous analysis on what True Love is. It is a very small part of what goes on in my head when I think on this subject, but it gives a good cross section of how my mental processes work when I am analyzing something.

Often people talk about "feeling" love. Many people think that love is a wonderful emotion. However, I think that True Love is not an emotion at all, it is a definite, and irreversible decision. Certainly this has emotional implications, but if a love has emotion as its FOUNDATION, it WILL fall in a relatively short period of time. Now I know that love as a decision isn't a new idea. However, I'd like to try and reason it out by myself with little input from former thinkers. Someday I will read up on this subject of love, and compare what I come up with to what others have come up with...

As one proof that when people are intelligently searching for a mate, they base their love on a decision, not a warm fuzzy feeling, I offer the rite of "going" with a person or "going out".

The whole purpose of this ritual is basically to:

1.) Let each other know that "feelings" are mutual
2.) Agree that both people commit to not carry on an equally weighted relationship with someone else.

If numbers one and two are true then usually the relationship is carried to a higher level. Level two of love. I would submit that this move to the second level of love is the growth from what could be described as an emotional type love, the original attraction, to a MUCH stronger decision based love, something more than just infatuation. This second level of love is brought on by the following decision function:

If (1) is true for both parties [mutual feelings of attraction] AND (2) is true for both parties [agreement to some type of commitment] THEN the relationship moves to the second level.
This is much like a binary AND gate being applied to (1) and (2).

I also propose that dating is a proof of decision based love. Dating is, ideally, the period of time that overlaps the tail end of the first level of love and carries a couple all the way through the second level to the beginning of the third level of love. Dating is a means of finding operands to base the second stage of love on. By dates we find out about the non-surface attributes of the other person. Is the other person: Funny? Smart? Demanding? Considerate? Kind? Domineering? All of these attributes are operands in the final decision of true love. At least they should be. Gradually, the decision to love or not love unconditionally is made. This decision, though based on operands, renders all operands moot. At this point, love becomes a pure decision. That is, it becomes a constant decision that no longer depends upon operands. It just exists. This would explain the phenomena of someone who continues to love another person in defiance of all common sense. For example: A girl staying with her boyfriend even though he is physically abusive. His treatment of her is no longer an operand in her decision.

As a side note it is probably a lot easier to find all these sub-surface operands through a friendship relationship as opposed to a dating relationship. It also has a greater rate of success at finding truly real, sub-surface characteristics. However, it takes longer, and society seems to be putting speed of relationships above simplicity and 'realness' of relationships, so I use a dating relationship as an example.

Assuming this is all true these are the three phases or levels of Love:

First is the initial attraction, which is a decision based on the operands of surface characteristics and subconscious presuppositions. This condition is also known as infatuation.

Second is a deeper, somewhat committed love that is based on the operands of deeper, personal characteristics. I would say that one reason divorce is so prevalent today is the fact that one or both persons involved in a married couple don't realize that there is a third level to love.

Third is unconditional love. This type of decisional love initially grows from operand based love, but once made, it ignores operands forever and becomes a pure decision.

These ideas present or require the following definitions:

Operand -- an argument of a function. In the case here, it is a condition in a decision.

Operator -- performs a function on operands and returns a result. Take for instance the AND opperator. Where two or more operands are fed into the function. If and only if all are true, the result is true.

Decision -- a personal, futuristic intent. Sometimes based on one or more conditions [operands] that can be true or false. It can also include operators.

Example: "This is true AND this is true therefore I will do that." [Two operands, one operator.]
Or "This is true therefore I will do that." [One operand, zero operators.]
Or "I will do that." [Zero operands, zero operators.]

Emotion -- A primal, instinctual, reflexive, and usually uncontrollable mental/chemical reaction to a situation or conditions. Very like a decision in that it has conditions and results, but in this case, results are present tense instead of future. Different from decisions also in that emotions are unconscious and reflexive most of the time and for the most part unprogrammable. Also different in that there MUST be a condition. THERE CAN BE NO BASELESS EMOTION AS THERE IS A DECISION. This is because emotion is a REACTION to conditions.

This also proves that TRUE love [Unconditional Love] is a decision.

Love -- in it's truest sense then is a non-conditional decision (no operands) to let a person, place, or thing [the lovee] become directly and indirectly involved with the lover's psyche, logical [decision] reasoning, and emotional well being. It is interference with emotional well being and the resulting "emotional" impact on the logical reasoning that often causes people to characterize Love as an emotion.

In closing, I'd just like to say that I applied all this to the kind of love that happens between two people of the opposite sex, because society is so taken with this type of relationship. However, these ideas also hold true for most other relationships dealing with love. Another thing: while this is the way love normally processes, it isn't necessarily the way it should processes...