"...the problem is its slippery as a concept, you can't describe it eloquently and even if you can words can be misinterpreted and you end up failing to get your meaning across."

Apparently;

Possessiveness is not love
Jealousy is not love
Lust is not love
Fear is not love
Keeping people all to yourself is not love
Expecting something from someone is not love

So, even if these are symptoms, then apparently, you're still wrong.

Most people who claim to love someone don’t really love them, because they don’t know what love actually is.

When love is not madness, it is not love.

The hunger for love is much more difficult to remove than the hunger for bread.

Love & attraction

While this list might seem a bit risqué judging from its title, it's not as bad (or good) as you might think. Each of these 114 weird words contains the word element "phil", from ancient Greek phileein to love, and so a 'philia' is a special love, affection, attraction or preference for a certain type of thing.

Word	Definition
aerophilately	collecting of air-mail stamps
ailurophilia	love of cats
ammophilous	sand-loving; preferring to dwell in sand
anemophilous	pollinated by wind
anglophilia	love or fondness for England or the English
anthophilous	loving or frequenting flowers
apodysophilia	feverish desire to undress
arctophily	study of teddy bears
astrophile	person interested in astronomy
audiophile	one who loves accurately reproduced recorded sound
belonephilia	sexual obsession with sharp objects
bibliophily	love or fondness for books or reading
canophilia	love or fondness for dogs
cartophily	the hobby of collecting cigarette cards
chasmophilous	fond of nooks, crevices and crannies
chiropterophilous	pollinated or frequented by bats
chromophilous	staining easily
chrysophilist	gold-lover
clinophilia	passion for beds
coprophilia	abnormal love or fondness for feces
cynophilist	one who loves dogs
dendrophilous	fond of trees
discophile	one who loves and studies sound recordings
electrophile	substance having an affinity for electrons or negative charge
entomophilous	adapted for pollination by insects
ergophile	one who loves work
Europhile	one who loves Europe
Francophile	one who loves France or the French
Gallophile	one who loves France or the French
geophilous	living in or near the ground
Germanophilia	love or fondness for Germany or the Germans
gerontophilia	sexual attraction towards the elderly
gynotikolobomassophile	one who nibbles on women’s earlobes
haemophilia	hereditary disease causing excesssive bleeding
halophilous	tolerant of salt or salt-water
heliophilous	preferring or attracted to the sunlight
hippophile	lover of horses
homophile	one who prefers the company of the same sex; a homosexual
hydrophilous	loving or preferring water
hygrophilous	preferring or living where there is an abundance of moisture
iconophilism	a taste for pictures and symbols
japanophilia	love or admiration for Japan or the Japanese
labeorphily	collection and study of beer bottle labels
limnophilous	living in ponds or marshes
lithophilous	living among stones
logophile	a lover of words
lygophilia	love of darkness
lyophile	easily dispersed in a suitable medium
malacophilous	pollinated by snails
myrmecophilous	having a symbiotic relationship with ants
necrophilia	unusual love or sexual attraction for corpses
negrophile	one who is sympathetic towards black people
nemophilist	one who loves the woods
neophile	one who loves novelty and trends
nitrophilous	flourishing in or preferring locations with abundant nitrogen
notaphily	collecting of bank-notes and cheques
oenophile	one who is fond of or loves wine
ombrophilous	tolerant of large amounts of rainfall
ophiophilist	snake-lover
ornithophilous	pollinated by birds
paedophilia	abnormal love or sexual attraction for children
palaeophile	antiquarian
paraphilia	any abnormal sexual attraction
peristerophily	pigeon-collecting
petrophilous	living on or thriving in rocky areas
philalethist	lover of truth
philately	study of postage stamps
philhippic	loving or admiring horses
phillumeny	collecting of matchbox labels
philocaly	love of beauty
philodemic	fond of commoners or the lower classes
philogyny	love of women
philomath	lover of learning
philonoist	one who seeks knowledge
philopornist	lover of prostitutes
philotechnical	devoted to the arts
philotherianism	love of animals
philoxenia	hospitality
photophilous	preferring or thriving in lighted conditions
phytophilous	fond of plants
pogonophile	one who loves beards
psammophile	sand-loving plant
psychrophilic	thriving in cold temperatures
retrophilia	love of things of the past
rheophile	living or thriving in running water
rhizophilous	growing or thriving on or near roots
Russophile	one who admires Russia or the Russians
sarcophilous	fond of flesh
sciophilous	thriving in or loving shady conditions
scopophilia	obtaining sexual pleasure from seeing things
Scotophilia	admiration for Scotland or the Scots
scripophily	collection of bond and share certificates
Sinophile	one who admires China or the Chinese
Slavophile	one who admires the Slavs
spermophile	member of family of seed-loving rodents
stegophilist	one who climbs buildings for sport
stigmatophilia	obsession with tattooing or branding
symphily	living together for mutual benefit
technophile	one who is fond of technology
thalassophilous	living in or fond of the sea
theophile	one who loves or is loved by God
thermophilous	preferring or thriving in high temperatures
timbrophily	love or fondness for stamps; stamp-collecting
tobaccophile	one who loves tobacco
topophilia	great love or affection for a particular place
toxophily	love of archery; archery; study of archery
tropophilous	flourishing in seasonal extremes of climate
turophile	cheese lover
typhlophile	one who is kind to the blind
xenophilia	love of foreigners
xerophily	adaptation to very dry conditions
xylophilous	fond of wood; living in or on wood
zoophilia	loving or caring for animals; bestiality
zoophily	loving or caring for animals; bestiality

Love, fondness & preference.

Love, fondness & preference.

I feel fuzzy, like a cloud and the sun

And the moon and the stars

Like being intoxicated

Without the loss of control

That's nice, it's a nice feeling.

Love cont.

Me
I like this.

by the way...

You

like I write about love all the time

Me

I could totally tell you i loved you in person.

You

well I could say it to you too

but you'd have to look in my eyes to see if I meant it

Me

thank you

you're good at this

You

people shit on it All the time

because our lives are saturated by our need to be loved

so its in the media, news, songs, books

as a race we're obessed by being loved

when someones nasty or a loner people often say Its because no one loves them

it shows the extent people have it embedded in them

Me

You

I could go on lol

Me

please do

i could listen for life.

You

ok take friendship love

plutonic?

i can never remember

Me

platonic

You

plutonic is atoms isnt it lol

but anyway

people dont seem to throw platonic love around as much

i mean do you tell ALL your friends that you love them

I dont personally I think thats odd

but then you have romantic love where people are willing to bestow so much onto 4 letters and then say it like its a key to a lock

thats why valentines day is such a weird thing

youve got card, banners and balloons with love written all over them and it just breaks down what it really means

if a kid is 12 and likes a girl, he atomatically thinks its love

because thats how its shown in the media

like every film has a romantic or sexual element

i mean even role models has a love story in it

and its a comedy about kids

its like a required element you know?

Me

i don't want to tell you i love you anymore

You

why?

dont you mean it

Me

i don't think you realise i mean it.

that's why.

You

well if you say you mean it I believe you and thank you, I love you too

thats another thing, not related to that but people feel obliged to say it back when people say it

(I do in this case) but they feel they have to

Me

it's rubbish

it's like

a stranglehold

i have to say

i've been guilty of saying it through almost

necessity

to make things OK

You

yeah exactly

theres nothing wrong with it

its just something we do

you dont know youre in love until its gone anyway

and you get that feeling that your stomach is no longer there

and youre just empty

like i said its all subjective, you can feel it for a person. or even the feeling the person gave you

Love.

"Well as a word its as weak or as strong as you make it. Its over used. It has to be backed up by sincerity. you shouldnt tell someone you love them romantically or as a friend if you cant say it with your eyes too. Sometimes it doesnt have to be said out loud. Its subjective too, some people need to hear it from those they love, rather than see it through actions. Like when I say it I mean it. if im gonna throw it around i'll shorten it to like luv or something because to me its not the same word. There are very few people I love. Ive never been in love, but I know it."

So you tell someone that you love them, but how do you know if you do? Who decided the definition for submission, who deems when meanings are correct and when they aren't? I love you can sometimes be insulting and pitiful so some; whilst to others a comfort and a necessity.

Just because you state it, there isn't a truth to it; it's just as well to base an entire project on a personal journey of deeper meanings, but that isn't what I want to do, what interest would others find in me telling them how I feel? But then that's just it, I find you interesting. Love is a stupid word, it doesn't mean anything because you want it to mean everything. This isn't about attaching experience to words any more, it's about others trying to control the experience, because of their assumptions of what we require as human beings.

what is love? BABY DON'T HURT ME.

The word "love" can have a variety of related but distinct meanings in different contexts. Often, other languages use multiple words to express some of the different concepts that English relies mainly on "love" to encapsulate; one example is the plurality of Greek words for "love." Cultural differences in conceptualizing love thus make it doubly difficult to establish any universal definition.

Although the nature or essence of love is a subject of frequent debate, different aspects of the word can be clarified by determining what isn't love. As a general expression of positive sentiment (a stronger form of like), love is commonly contrasted with hate (or neutral apathy); as a less sexual and more emotionally intimate form of romantic attachment, love is commonly contrasted with lust; and as an interpersonal relationship with romantic overtones, love is commonly contrasted with friendship, although other definitions of the word love may be applied to close friendships in certain contexts.

the beauty of a sentence.

What is more beautiful than a sentence? Words seemingly at random, thrown together with letters and punctuation to create a body of meaning to someone. It is how we communicate, our very existence relies on the knowledge of how a sentence works, the games, the foreplay, sentences are cheeky. You have to have acquired social skills to know when to stop, to start or to interrupt. Manners are essential if you are to commit to a tentative conversation, or if you're feeling a little bit sneaky then why don't you speak pragmatically. In the field of linguistics, a sentence is an expression in natural language, often defined to indicate a grammatical unit consisting of one or more words that generally bear minimal syntactic relation to the words that precede or follow it. A sentence can include words grouped meaningfully to express a statement, question, exclamation, request or command. As with all language expressions, sentences may contain both function and content words, and contain properties distinct to natural language, such as characteristic intonation and timing patterns.

you say tomato, I say tomato.

How do we know what the perceived idea of normal is? Have we ever felt pain before? All we have is what we know, and what we know derives from personal experience. When someone tells you they love you, how do you know that what it means for you is exactly how they received it? It is this linguistic game play that I am interested in, how differently we react to vocabulary, the definition of something, will there ever be a consistent meaning?

It is almost exactly a game, and each participant has their own rules. Let us agree to disagree. Who is ever wrong if both participants have been brought up to view their own lexicon as correct?

04.07am in the big brother haus

You know what IS good? Watching Josie from Big Brother repeatedly wash things because she's upset and can't sleep. It isn't really, it just means that I don't have a sleeping pattern and I'm into voyeurism. I forgot to put voyeurism on my list of things, I like the idea of watching people, not necessarily in the crudest of acts... it's just as much fun to watch over the trivial and mundane too. I don't think I would pull out a whole project on Big Brother, it's too boring. Not boring in the sense of contradicting what I just said, I meant the whole charade; the reason I watch it is for the psychology behind it. A lot of people are quick to judge it as tacky and tasteless, and although it is most of the time both of these, it still interests me in the way that you can observe human behaviour. It goes back to the idea of humans loving other humans in distress and discomfort, a sort of seduction into something we don't want to watch, but we feel we have to. Obviously there's never usually anything insanely traumatising on big brother, for legal issues and morality, but it isn't just about the game show and the trials and tribulations of the tasks that is most interesting, it is the house mates themselves.

There's been a lot of concern from the British Psychological Society aimed at the producers of Big Brother because it relies on manipulation and misinformation to get responses from participants. In many cases the activities that happen in the Big Brother house would not be permitted within a contemporary psychological study. Where you would mislead a participant you always need to fully debrief them after and there has to be a valid reason why you would manipulate them. So quite understandably, for psychologists to get involved with Big Brother, they would have the added problem of contributing to endorse something happening on a television programme that they shouldn't be doing in a laboratory experiment.

And that is essentially what it is, an experiment, people forget that it is a social experiment and it has gone from that to in essence, a freak show, the main aim originally was for people to observe other people living normally, but it is a far cry from what it used to be. It's insane, how some things aren't permitted on the show, yet they get away with so much more. And I'm not knocking it, I love it, people sucking their thumbs unknowingly in a confrontational situation, the threshold of the human temper, it's brilliant. I like this idea, the idea of observation, but how would it translate into a product? Throughout all of this research I must put to the front of my mind that it has to evolve into something, a final product, and the only thing I see currently is CCTV, I'm sick of it. The rights, the dangers, who has the power?

trolls.

Trolls are fun, but on the subject of trolls I can link a few of my other ideas to the idea and aesthetics of trolls. I enjoyed the idea of researching into words and definitions and so I could most certainly start looking into the definition of the word troll, which has a lot of meanings especially when referring to the internet in the same context.

An idea would be to try to use most of the visual items on my list to represent the non visual items, and so this would start by defining the many definitions of the word troll. In Internet slang, a troll is someone who posts inflammatory messages in an online community, such as on an online discussion forum, chat room, or blog, with the intent of provoking other users. Trolls are also monsters though aren't they, primarily?

The contemporary use of the term is alleged to have first appeared on the Internet in the late 1980s, but the earliest known example is from 1992. It is thought to be a truncation of the phrase trolling for suckers. That phrase is itself derived from the fishing technique of slowly dragging a lure or baited hook from a moving boat, waiting for fish to strike, a technique known as trolling.

The word also evokes the trolls portrayed in Scandinavian folklore and children's tales, as they are often creatures bent on mischief and wickedness. The verb "troll" originates from Old French "troller", a hunting term. The noun "troll", however, comes from the Old Norse word for a mythological monster.