How do you know if you love someone or not?

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So this is the single most awkward question I'm ever going to post.

I'm in a relationship with a guy, and have been dating for about 4 months now. And I don't have any idea if I'm actually... well romantically interested in this individual.

What is love supposed to feel like?

I've asked the same question for many years. People kept telling me that I was just supposed to "know". I asked how I would know if I "knew". I asked what it would feel like, but nobody answered beyond that. Someone said though (probably jokingly) that you "know" when you have sex with the person and you finish at the exact same time. (I personally call it "syncing".) So far it took me 5 years to get over the person I had "synced" with, so I'm going to have to go with that answer for now.

my thought is, like he said you just know. If you have to ask others if you are. then you're not.

Sometimes u gotta think about it, u can be in love but not realize it. When my bf sais the "L" word, I was like crap I know he wants me to say it back but I want to mean it. Wait, do I love him? By the end of the nite I realized I was so close it was inevitable so I said it anyways. The next day I knew I loved him. U gotta think about what u feel, and what is love and do they match.

This is something I would also like to know...or feel.

As in what I would like it to be: Someone holding me tight, and telling me it's going to be OK, that they love me, and they are going to stick around no matter what. And I would just feel the same way.

Like what b9, has with his love. He explained it well.

Here's my experience and knowledge.

If you're talking about infatuated love, the kind that happens when people "fall in love" with each other or are "head over heels", there are some signs that can help you recognise if it's happening to you (it can take a while to know that you're in love, though for some it happens very fast):

-If you have a special interest, you'll feel for the other person pretty similarly to how you feel about your interest.
-The person will be in your thoughts very frequently, more so than a friend would be.
-You may replay lots of positive memories of the person in your mind (or negative ones, and really worry about them).
-You might fantasise about enjoyable things to do with the other person (whether platonic or sexual).
-You could spend a lot of time thinking of ways to improve your relationship with this person.
-Touching him/her even in a small/casual way would feel almost "magical" or "electric".
-S/he might start appearing frequently in your dreams (which may be of a sexual nature).
-Any message, text, email, phone call, note, or other communication that person makes with you will probably feel very exciting to receive.
-Basically, if you've ever felt addicted to or obsessed with something, falling in love is like becoming addicted to another person. Contact (verbal or physical) with them feeds your craving perfectly and feels like the best thing in the world.

I think it's important to realise, though, that infatuated love is not the perfect ideal that will make a relationship work in the long term (it usually fades after about five years, though it can happen multiple times in a long-term relationship). Real love comes from compatibility and devotion, not being "head over heels". If you enjoy his company and want to spend lots of time with him, care deeply about him as you would a best friend, and find that he's generally very compatible with you (you agree on lifestyle and important issues, and have common interests), then I would say that's probably a relationship worth pursuing. Lots of people "fall in love" with each other, then realise they are incompatible and have a miserable breakup, while good friends can often discover somewhere down the line that the love they have is more than friendly.

Hope that's helpful.

Love is always wanting to be around a person.
Thinking about them constantly.
Wanting to include them in your life.
It's feeling "safe" around them, trusting them.
Feeling inclined to trust them more than others.
It's the ultimate sense of friendship, yet it's not particularly needy.

You don't horseshoe or obscure any parts of yourself for someone you love.
You merge going relatively the same direction in life.
It's about fitting together naturally, not changing yourself.

It also takes time. You won't love someone right away, or even in a few weeks. It takes time and familiarity for it to happen gradually. The healthiest forms of love are gradual. So, in that respect, it's good that you've taken some time.

I'm in love and have a hard time defining the feeling. It is more than just liking someone. I consider him in most decisions I make. I include him in my life, and make a great effort to be in his. There is a feeling of comfort. Often, just knowing he is nearby is enough to make me feel safe. I can be 100% myself around him, and knowing he accepts me, and I accept him, almost feels like we fit together. We can talk for hours, and I'm not always certain about what. Or we can be in the same room, silently each doing our own thing, but the silence is never awkward. When I look at him, I can't help but to smile and realize how lucky I feel.

Well I can't say I've ever been in love so I could be wrong. But my personal test, based on my experiences in life, for whether I truly love someone or not is how much I would be willing to sacrifice for their personal well-being. For example, would you be willing to sacrifice some of your personal happiness and well-being to care for them if they became chronically ill? Or if their job required them to move across the country, would you be willing to support them? And of course like any test it isn't foolproof, you can still truly love someone even if you answer "no" to those questions and more!

Of course there are varying degrees of love, and lit can either grow or diminish over time. It can often be hard to distinguish love and lust, and many people never truly learn to tell the difference.

My husband old me if you don't want anything to happen to that person and you would be very upset if they left you, then that means you love them. But does that mean you love your own friends or anyone else in the world because you don't want anything bad to happen to them or even get hurt? Does that mean you love your own friends if you would be upset if they dumped you as a friend?

I don't think I have ever felt love except for my own son because I felt something I never felt before when I had him. I don't know how to describe the feeling I had for him. But it was a different feeling than I had than for anyone else including my own husband and family.

When people bad talk about my husband saying what a bad man he is and how abusive he is or lazy, I feel anger and don't like anyone thinking bad stuff about him that are not true. I think that is love there I feel because I care so much about him and people don't understand our situation.

Falling in love is very easy part. However you must think over with it also to avoid being hurt at the end.

Well, I've been in love 3 times and each time the feeling was different. I do not think there is an all-encompassing rule for this sort of thing. However, the one thing each time had in common was "Who do I automatically want to turn to when life becomes too much?" That, for me, was the one thing that made me realize I was in love each time. I understand that for some people this question may not work, since some automatically turn to a close friend or family member even if they are in love with someone else, which is why I said there is no universal rule regarding romantic love.

I go with Sternberg's triangular theory of love with its three main components: intimacy, passion and commitment, and the types characterized by different combinations of those traits. According to this model, the ideal would be consummate love: it has all three of these characteristics. In this kind of love you essentially feel physical attraction to each other, feel like very good friends and you also feel committed to each other at the same time.

If you are more interested in the other kinds of love, there are plenty of resources which describe them well.

I'm in love with all my friends. As romantic relationship is something which are in need of social programming from early age (because it is a cultural thing only some hundred years old), I missed that out because of my impaired social skills. It's a great feeling to be in love, and it is great to always feel it because I have some great friends. I'm rather an intensive friend because of that; I meet my friends in the same way as they meet their partners.

I think the possibility to miss out the romantic relationship programming may lead to confusion regarding the understanding of being in love, and it is always worth a reflection if one has problems getting in love the expected way.

If you want to be near them or with them to the point that you are willing to risk embarrassment, pain or some other unpleasant result then you might be somewhere in the ballpark. If you actually suffer that result and still want to be near them, well, god help you. You're probably a goner.

Short of that all you can know for sure is that you are attracted. We mistake that for love all the time and I don't know if there is an easy test.