My take....? .....my take is that love reflects the meeting of different perceived needs among different individuals. One person may feel a need to be respected, another feels a need for security, or maybe a need for deep companionship. Yet another person may primarily need food, clothing, and shelter in addition to all of these other needs. There is diversity of need, and so we may feel confused about love.
The disturbing thing we can find in the middle of all of this is that there may be this little self-centered voice inside us that tells us not to let go, who demands to be understood but not wanting to understand. And that's the catch to love, I think, or at least one of the complications we experience. We may may find that while we have good intentions toward someone else, we don't really have within ourselves that which is needed to meet the needs of the other person. And so we may feel confused about love.
Moreover, we maybe don't even know what it is that we truly need, but then we find ourselves being asked by others to reciprocate with them...in kind even. At that point, we may realize we don't know or truly understand what is truly needed by another person, and we hedge and say, "love is hard to define."
So, we idealize definitions of love, but since we don't always know ourselves what is needed between ourselves and others, let alone truly care at times, we may feel confused about it all. Thus, here we are, somewhat stuck, trying to figure out what love is, not knowing for sure whether or not we are really doing it or expressing it.
But, we're human, what do we expect? On the whole, the "we" of humanity haven't expected a whole lot out of love, really. History shows us this. But, then, Jesus of Nazareth just showed up one day, out of the blue...and began to show us what love is, inviting us to look at the living, breathing embodiment we try so hard to define and idealize.
2PhiloVoid