Love is 

a set of emotions and behaviour characterized by intimacy, passion,

and commitment. Love, though difficult to define, is considered to be usually
an intense but positive emotion which can be experienced for closed ones. The
list includes romantic partner or spouse, children, parents, close friends and
other relatives. It has its own set of components, as per Zick Robins they
primarily are, attachment, the feeling of being cared for and the need to be with
the other person; care, being in position of concern for other person’s happiness
as of ones own and intimacy, the exchange of private feelings, thoughts and
desires with the other person.
Love can be broadly distinguished as Passionate love and Companionate love.
Passionate love is romantic in nature and is about extreme desire for one
another along with intense psychological feelings backed by only little logic and
strong sexual desire. It is inclusive of effects like, racing heartbeats, blushing
and sweating. This kind of love might be short lived and accompany in the early
part of the relationship leading to things like overlooking faults, avoiding
conflicts and generating a feeling of completeness. Companionate love is
considered to last longer than passionate love. It is less intense but deep in terms
of attachment. It provides a sense of familiarity, tolerance for faults and the
want of overcoming difficulties.
This usually deep-rooted emotion does not only involve abstract chemistry but
also literal chemistry. Falling in love triggers multiple chemicals like,
dopamine, norepinephrine, serotonin which build attachment and oxytocin and
vasopressin which mediate it. The neurotransmitters involved in love function
to some capacity like drugs which is why withdrawal from neurotransmitters
leads to feeling to despair, pain anxiety and sadness somewhat like withdrawal
from a drug.
There can several reasons why one falls in love with a person and not with the
other. These can be proximity, similarity, reciprocity, physical attractiveness
etc. Similar personal characteristics are called homophily. This can be
influenced by many factors like, similar age and educational background. Other
reasons like reciprocity and proximity can possibly lead to more familiarity in
turn leading to increase in the level of comfort.
Love though an intense emotion is not always back by longevity. It needs
efforts to stay as it is and to even blossom more. It requires maintenance of
relationship satisfaction through appreciation, commitment, individual growth,
companionship like best friends, sexual expression, mutual empathy, non-
hesitant communication, ability to deal with conflicts maturely, regard for each
other’s interests and choices etc.
The emotion of love is an amalgamation of profound empathetic and positive
feelings towards a person. This feeling can sometimes be transient as well as
enduring the other times. The act of falling if love entails the action of various
chemicals which facilitate it but cultivating an enduring relationship is an
accomplishment made through various efforts and imbibition of necessary
qualities besides all the reasons of falling in love staying in love is not by itself.
Love is a strong emotion and harbours other co-existent sentiments which make
it complete.