Major props to zxxbsmsgirl3148 who wrote Zoey's essay. A total work of literary genius. Everybody give her a round of applause, and thank you very, very much for giving me it.

A study of the term 'Love' by Zoey Brookes

I think that maybe everyone in the world has a different view of the word 'love'. Even in my one opinion, I can think of three different main types of love.

One definition of love would be romantic love. A male and a female fall "in love", where they want to date, get married, have kids. Romantic love is the kind of love you read about in cheap, one-dollar romance novels that you pick up in a subway station. Romantic love is the kind of love you see shining on people's faces when a man and a woman or a guy and a girl walk down the street, looking into each other's eyes and holding hands. Romantic love is the kind of love many people talk about when they aren't in love, but then when it happens to them they are tongue tied and just sit in a daze, replaying scenes of their lover, over and over. Romantic love can seem like the scariest type of love, or at least I think it might be. I don't think I've ever been in love. I've had crushes but I don't think I 've ever been in love. I think that romantic love would be the scariest because it happens so fast, and from seeing my parents, sometimes you completely get swept up. You can say things you never expected to say, or say stupid things because you are scared of this new experience. New feelings can be scary, and romantic love is all about new feelings.

Another type of love is friendly love. You can love your friends without being in love with them. You can love a best friend of the same gender, but you wouldn't be in love with them, of course, or you could love your best friend of the opposite gender without being in love with them. It's a comfortable kind of love, where you can share anything and not worry about your secrets being told or having them laugh at you.

There is also family love. You can love your mom, your dad, your sister, your brother, your cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents, but it isn't the same kind of thing as being in love with someone or loving them like a friend. In my family, family love allows for a lot. In my family, we love each other so much that no matter how harsh a fight or how foul an argument we have had, we can still fall back on each other when we need help. Family love, in my experiences, is eternal, but you have to work hard for it. In a family, I think you should help each other out and do whatever it takes to keep yourselves together. Romantic love and friendly love need more luck than work, because your family is always there, always has been there, and always will be. To find a lover or the perfect best friend, you need luck to find that one special person, or few special people.

The funny thing about the English language is that there is only one way to say, "I love you." Sometimes you can tell someone that you love them, but they might not understand which way you meant it. If, for example, you had a best friend that you loved as just a friend, and you told them that you loved them, they might take it the wrong way and think that you meant that you were in love with them. In Spanish, though, there is one way to say that you love something, like, "I love this movie," or, "I love this food." Then there's another way to tell someone that you are in love with them or that you love them as a family member. Why can't English be as simple? But even if English was simpler, where there wasn't hidden meanings, it wouldn't make love any les s complicated. Love is complicated because more than one person is involved, and love has to be treated carefully, so that everyone involved will still be able to work together.

If you ask me, love can be described in so many ways that it wouldn't be able to fit on any amount of paper. You would constantly be writing new ways to describe it that you would be writing forever. Love is what keeps the world together. To sum up my essay, I would like to quote this silly statement: "Duct tape is like love. It has a dark side and a light side, and holds everything together." Love truly does hold the world together. No love, no life.

A study of the term 'Love' by Rebecca Sinclair.

Recently, instead of spending my nights at my dorm watching America's Next Top Model and wasting myself on a packet of chocolate éclairs, I've been comforting my best friend - who shall remain anonymous - who has just came down with an incurable illness, that wasn't her fault in the first place to catch.

"Tell me I'm safe."

"I can't," I sighed truthfully.

The fid (friend in distress) would usually start the night by listing her symptoms.

"I'm, I'm going crazy," gasped the fid, "I-I-I, I'm going stupid, I don't understand things anymore and I'm crushing, falling into a sort of oblivion...twilight zone...what the hell is wrong with me?"

The fid looked at me expectantly. You see in this friendship, I am not normally the common sense, but since the fid has lost all of hers due to her illness, then I had to try and take some aboard.

"Is it leprosy? Or...a cold? Amnesia? DEMENTIA?"

And here comes my excellent diagnosis :

"I think…it's love."

Why is everybody phased so much by this? Love is supposed to be something fantastic and beautiful, but if it's with the wrong people at the wrong time then it can turn out to be such a stupid catastrophe.

Never mind terrorism or global warming.

The thing we panic about most is love.

Now, my fid, she's freaking out. Night after night, she cries herself to sleep. She spends her days eating my chocolate éclairs and foam-bottomed Haribo love-hearts and watching daytime television like Trisha, or Rikki Lake. And it's depressing to see her like this. For all of us. Because this fid, is the back bone to all of our sanity. She's funny, she helps, she aides, and now, she's incompetent. It's a sad thing to see.

So why do people look forward to falling in love when the most painful thing is falling out of it?

And it's unlikely, that at this age, anyone's going to stay in love for the rest of their lives. Not until they're twenty, at least.

Then, the unmeant love. "Oh my God, I love your shirt!" "Oh go on, I'll love you forever." "I love it. Love it, love it, love it!" It's just something that rolls off the tongue, but it does bother me.

If you love my shirt so much why don't you just go marry it and move to Hawaii?

The 'definition' of love can tell us a lot.

Definition One - A deep, tender, feeling of affection towards a person.

Definition Two – A zero score in tennis.

I know a lot of people would rather fall for 'Definition One' but it does make you think.

Is love nothing but a big fat zero?

Does it win you nothing?

Does it make you a loser?

In tennis it does.

In life? Who knows.

So what do I say? It's not worth it. Love? Maybe it's not for me. I've been hurt, tossed about, played around, and at the end of it, I blame the 'L' word. God, I couldn't 'love' my way out of a paper bag. So love?

It's way overrated.

A study of the term 'Love' by (insert your name here).

I guess I should maybe have written my name in the insert bit? I don't have a clue what to do.

Crushing on totally hot guys, my favorite hobby ever, is not love. I like to kid myself that it is, like I'd be all,

"OHMYGOD I LOVE ORLANDO BLOOM!"

You know? But I don't really, though I do really love him in pirate gear. Mmm.

Anyway, back to the point. Love's different for everyone, right? Some people are in 'hidden love' i.e coughrebeccaandlogancough though they don't know it, in fact, they hate each other, but it's sooo going to happen. I have a fourth eye about these sort of things. Or maybe I mean third eye.

Whatever, the point is, I knoooow.

And some of my friends are in 'unrequited love.' That's so sad to watch them pine you know? Distressing. Almost as upsetting when they don't have the new Steve Madden boots in my size.

Yeah, that upsetting.

And I hate fakey love! Some people are in love with the idea of being in love! They're in love with love, not whoever they, 'ahem', love. It's downright silly. You don't love them. Snap out of it.
And sometimes, people think they're in love but they're not. They're just totally crushing real, real bad. Some girls just ooze gorgeousness and while it's not fair, they can't help it, and then guys are seriously crushing hard and having dirty dreams like 'oh yeah, I'm in love.' Sometimes I wish I was a girl like that. It's weird knowing a girl like that though, cause she has no idea.

And actual love?

Well, when you figure that one out, please get back to me.

By Nicole Bristow

A Study of the term 'Love' by Kristen Williams

I'd like to think I've been in love. In fact, I probably have. Truthfully, it's the most amazing thing ever, you feel like you're on Cloud 9 and you tune out to anything and everything. Love is a wonderful thing which makes you feel light and wanted. Of course, my friends were oblivious to me.

When in love, you have to be really careful.

Extra careful.

You've got to pay attention. If you're in love, nothing matters except you and him. Sure enough, your friends eventually fall to the side but you just think 'they don't understand. They're not in love.'

Then there's other loves. Like family love. I love my parents, I love my family, I love my step-brother Nate though occasionally he annoys the hell outta me, but I'm always there for him. Dependable love. They're the people in life who really understand you. I'd be devastated if something ever happened to Nate, though he can never, ever know that. Broken up into pieces. I like that kinda love. It makes you feel safe, and I'm sure you can agree.

Then of course, the mutual friendship love. There is no one I love more in that way than Nicole, Rebecca and Zoey. At first, we didn't like each other at all. I don't know what had been going around about me but it didn't matter, we've gotten real close. They're a little eccentric and at times extremely weird and spontaneous but they're worth everything to me. I'd hate to lose any of them.

And I know platonic love is supposed to be abseloutely amazing, it's just so depressing when you feel something different. Hey, the hardest kinda love is 'unrequited' and at the other end of unrequited comes a bag fat 'platonic' written out in magenta magic marke.

But in conclusion, there's little I can say. Well, except, I love love.