What is the meaning of love?

I ask this because I'd never been in love.

Not truly in love. Infatuated maybe, deep crush definitely but truly madly in love never had the pleasure. But I have always wondered and always needed to see if what I was feeling was love or was it something else.

So the million dollar question I want the answer to is what is the meaning of love?

I've read more then a hundred books to see what the experts know. To find the meaning of love but all they talk about is how to stay in love or how to keep your love alive and the books that talk about finding love are wrong in my opinion. They say love is an emotion a tie that binds one to another a connection but what do the experts know you can have that type of bond with anyone right? That type of love could be for a close friend or a relative.

They sing about love. But do they truly capture the essence of it. I hear women sing of the love they have for another the anguish they feel when they are betrayed or the love one has to give but no one to give it to. The male singers sing of the one that makes there blood boil the one that takes there breathe away. They sing of betrayal also and of their love being thrown to the side when they are wrong. I don't believe the answer is in music so I still look for the meaning.

It's portrayed on television ever day in the morning on the cartoons, in the afternoon with the soaps and in the evening when two people are in a relationship or are partners profess their love the music crescendos and you know something is going to happen and they say they love each other then kiss and cut to commercial.

This is their depiction of love but it's not true love its something that's written and then acted out. Like in the movies they are all actors but they act like they are in love but how much of that is fact and how much is it fiction?

I've seen people in love and ask them what does it feel like and they look at me and try to explain but it's no use they can't explain the feelings and fail miserably when they try to compare it to something.

Regardless of all the places I've looked I'm not sure what it is. I need evidence something I could touch something I could put my brain around but who do I ask?

So I go on with life and wonder would love ever strike me.

They say when it happens I will know but I've spent most of my adult life looking and still nothing appears to happen and despite all the research and time I've put into it I still can't find the definition of love.

I thought I was in love once but it turned out to be a battle of wills with my father. I figured it out too late I had accepted a ring from a man I hardly knew because my father said I didn't know what I was doing and I wanted to show him that he was wrong, that I knew exactly what I was doing that I could fix him that I would be enough for him. This is what I thought love was giving myself to him and helping him better himself.

That turned out bad he hurt me emotionally and physically and I would not speak his name and my father forgave me when he came to see me in the hospital and saw what the monster had done. I was truly turned off to love then and there.

I thought love was something that was given unconditional like a child to a parent, a pet to a master. That no matter what my actions good or bad I was still loved no matter what.

Maybe it was because I had lost my mother at a young age that I could not define love. Was it a secret passed between mother and daughter? Who would tell me of this secret and heaven forbid when I finally had a daughter what would I tell her love was?

Love elude me after my fiasco with my ex fiancé. I decided to concentrate my energy to my career.

I love my job, its something I truly enjoy I would rather spend time in my lab then with others that is what I felt when I got assigned to the stargate program. I thought is this the meaning of love? To care for something more then one's own life I wish someone would give me a clue.

I've never been in love before but I think things are changing or maybe lightning has finally struck.

I love my team. I would lay down my life for each and every one of them they mean that much to me. I never felt such a connection with anyone.

I love Daniel like I love my brother Mark. Maybe a little more I seem to want to protect him he's so childlike at times and to see him discover something new puts a smile on my face I love him like an older sister would love her baby brother.

I love Teal'c as a brother also. He is a great warrior and I respect him and his ways. He is the older brother that Mark should have been with me when we where growing up. He cares for all of us making sure we are well and not in harms way. I feel safe with him and love him for caring for me.

Then there's the Colonel.

I never been in love before but if love is what I feel when a certain Colonel is around me then I'm head over heels.

There is a permanent smile on my face whenever I see him I try to look away but I know I can't. My stomach starts to flutter and I try my best to impress him with my knowledge but I stop when I see that glazed look in his eyes when I've given him too much information.

He is so special to me he found that place in my heart that had been empty for so long. He is caring and only shows this side to us his team but Daniel says he only really shows it to me. I try to analyze my emotions but its no use. I start to think of all the clichés, love is not binding, truelove always prevails,love is true, love is a many splendor thing but what I feel is love because when he is around my life is brighter and when he is not it's a dull shade of gray.

I wonder if he feels the same as I do? But stop myself from thinking too much and remember what the experts say to let it run its course it will all work out in the end. So yes I think I've finally got my answer to what love is.

Love is sharing cake with my CO. Love is the way butterflies start to flutter in my stomach whenever he is around. Love is a trust between two people an unspoken alliance that is shared by them and only them. Love is staring at him and wondering what our children would look like.

Yes, I can finally say I know the meaning of love. To me it's a certain gray haired colonel with a tendency to crack bad jokes, has a love for cake and would be there for me as I would be there for him.