A lot of what people call love is really just idealisation. You’re with somebody that ignores you, you spend more time not talking than talking, there’s disrespect, rudeness, inconsistency, no security, no clear intention and no real choosing of each other, yet you’re still calling it love because you can imagine what it could look like if everything suddenly changed. That’s loving love in theory. When you actually love the reality of love, you want to be in the presence of it. You want to experience it, see it, feel it and live inside something where love is being actively embodied. You can also recognise when it isn’t there, and you don’t need to call the potential of it love just to make the connection feel more meaningful than it is.