Connotation/Denotation

Every day the word “love” so calmly slips from the mouths of ignorant people who attempt to express their lust and affection towards their significant others. Love is such a simple yet profound word that is misused far too much. Love is rare, a privilege that most human beings will never have the opportunity to have. To me, it is unattainable. To me, love is pure imagination. It is far too complicated and perfect for me to be able to feel.
The word love is so diverse. Each and every person on earth has a different definition of love, and frankly no one, yet everyone is correct. Love will never be defined. Sure there is a definition for it in the dictionary, but that is solely because the world would go mad had it never been officially defined. According to Webster Dictionary, love is defined as, “A profoundly tender, passionate affection for another person.” But we humans, being the superior species we believe we are, have redefined this word a million and one times, and the definition will remain changing for as long as life goes on. The first love that most humans experience is the purest, and most sincere of all. It is the love for one’s family. Growing up, most of us are taught that your family is a group of people that you must love unconditionally. We don’t normally question this love, because it is what we were programmed to feel. This love is magical. It assures me that even if my brother and I get into a fight, at the end of the day, my brother is still going to love me, and care for me. Humans don’t necessarily get to develop this love; it is just kind of always there from the get go. This love is reassuring and strong.

Later on in life, some people experience a new type of love. This is the love for a boyfriend or girlfriend. Otherwise known as “puppy love” this love is strange and horribly wonderful. It's staying up late for someone and barely staying awake in class the next day. It's going to the mall wandering around hand in hand with a silence that's comfortable. It's watching a movie in the theaters with his arm slowly creeping onto your shoulder and you resting your head in his arms. It's uncertainty of how long it will last, a risk you're both willing to take, even if it means you'll have a broken heart. It's not yet true love, not like, nor lust, nor infatuation. It’s teenage love; here to play with our hearts and never go away. Too often, the word love is used as a manipulative word. During our teenage years, we all long to be told that were loved, so when someone tells you that they love you during these naïve years, you’re probably going to believe them. Sometimes one teenager can be experiencing puppy love while the person they’re a relationship with may just be using them for their own personal, selfish desires. A common way a person can abuse the word love occurs in these types of relationships. This love falls out ones mouth is order to get something in return, whether it is to get your significant other to sleep with you, or maybe just to make them grow attached to you, because you strive for their attention. This false sense of love is foul and should not exist. The most commonly known, but least commonly felt of all these types of love is true love. True love is finding ones self in another and the delight in the recognition. This is most wanted love, and the most hard to find. Many people will go through life feeling a fake sense of this love. True love is passionate. It encompasses every emotion in the world, and could honestly make a person go insane. I can’t really explain this love, because I have yet to feel it, nor do I really find myself capable of feeling such a strong emotion. This is love that is supposed to combine people in matrimony and signifies a life-long bond. This love is powerful and beautiful. Love will forever remain the most diverse word in the English language. Because there are so many definitions of the word and different forms of the word, no one has the ability to give it an overall definition. Since love is a type of emotion, we will all have different interpretations of it, and no one will have the authority to tell us we are wrong. Love is love, and that is all.