Natman,

 

Very beautifully expressed.

 

I also think that "mutually sustained" love is ideal.  I wonder what to call it when only one person loves?  If it is romantic love I guess it would be unrequited love... a longing for it to be mutual.

 

But then I still have trouble with that.  Suppose a person "falls in love" with someone unavailable, someone who already loves another, someone who is not capable of feeling love for another person, or someone who just doesn't want them for whatever reason.  Is that desire rather than love?

 

I find this term "love" an overly used and ambiguous phrase... yet it is associated with so much happiness, so much hope.  In the name of "love" people have made some phenomenal things to happen. 

 

I want to love, yet I am afraid to love. I feel confused.