I've spent a lot of time thinking about the philosophical nature of love. My abstraction is that 'love' is a sufficient level of interest at the expense of our

I've spent a lot of time thinking about the philosophical nature of love. My abstraction is that 'love' is a sufficient level of interest at the expense of our own interest. Indeed, it is rationally irrational, and 'sufficient' is dependent on each individual. One of the best ways I can explain the mechanism is to use a percentage analogy. For a given relationship, say you have 100% interest in yourself, than you have 0% interest in that other person. Things get interesting above the 50% mark because you are willing to take risks for the other person. Say you are single and meet an attractive and interesting person... are you at a point where the risk of being rejected is less than the reward of a future relationship? If you have an 'interest level' of >50% I'd say yes, you would take that chance. Likewise in dating, heterosexual males tend to have interest levels that start out much higher than heterosexual females. A successful dating strategy for a heterosexual male would be to accurately gauge a heterosexual female's interest level and act as if his interest was no higher than hers, but to continually work at increasing her interest level in him. I think the magic threshold for what is considered love is a band between 90% to 100% interest level in another person because this leaves you with between 10% to 0% interest in yourself... i.e. you are overwhelmingly putting that other person's interest before your own, up to the point where you would sacrifice your life for theirs (0% interest in yourself). Where things can go wrong is where this level of interest is not reciprocal or at the very least balanced. 'True love' could be a perfect balance whereby you both have 100% interest level in each other and therefore your needs are met by your partner and you meet their needs. There are exceptions, say the love of a dedicated parent may be at the 100% threshold and they would willingly sacrifice themselves when it isn't clear if their child can conceptualize that level of love, or be able to return it. Anyhow, I have a lot more to say on the topic but I'll digress too much. My point is, to give a framework to think through the mechanics of 'love'... and to back up some of the posters here who have made assertions such as: * Simulated love is equivalent if you cannot tell the difference (à la Blade Runner) * Love is a contextual perspective * You can feel love with no reciprocation (this would cover love towards inanimate objects, and situations where your love interest is not interested)