It seems to me like every adult older than me has their love life figured out. Parents, grandparents, church leaders, the president, and even the cute couple who owns the diner down the street. Movies depict what love should look like, and books give us fantasies of perfect relationships. All our lives, the older generation has set an example for what love should be, but has also demonstrated that every love is unique.

At eighteen, I am still learning what love looks and feels like. I may not have found that perfect love yet, or even know what it would look like when I did find it, but I do know without a doubt what love is not.

Love is not controlling.

I've had quite a few relationships in my few years of dating. I'm not ashamed of it; you have to figure out what you do and do not want somehow. Through this *extensive* research, I have found that the farthest thing from love is control. If your significant other is affectionate only when you wear what he/she tells you to wear, it's not love. If you are scared to even talk to another person for fear of verbal backlash from your significant other, it's not love. If you've thought "my boyfriend/girlfriend won't let me do this", it is not love.

None of this is to say that doing things and dressing certain ways to please your significant other is wrong. Dressing up and doing fun or cute activities for your boyfriend or girlfriend is healthy, but feeling obligated or compelled to do something because of fear or nervousness from how your significant other would react is not healthy. It's important to remember that you are your own person; your life is your own to live. Your boyfriend/girlfriend shouldn't be hindering you from living the life that you want to live, they should be supporting your dreams and whims.

Love is not repetitive leaving and coming back.

"If you love something, let it go. If it comes back, it's yours forever. If it doesn't, it was never meant to be."

NO. Love is not an experiment. Love isn't letting someone go just to check if they will come back. If you find it easy to let someone go in any circumstance; because you want to try it with other people, because you want to see if they really love you, because you want to be single "just because"; it is not love. And if they find it easy to leave you for any of these reasons, that should be your answer. It does not make you or them a bad person, but it does mean that you aren't meant for each other, and why would you continue that if you know that you aren't compatible on that level?

Why would you want to be with someone who once (or twice, or more!) felt that you were not good enough for them? Your heart is not something to be played with. Your emotions are more valuable than what they are being taken for. Your love is sacred and precious, and should be treated as such.

Love is not unforgiving.

Everybody has baggage. At some point in everyone's lives, something has happened that now sparks mistrust in them. For some, that mistrust is in themselves for things that they've done in the past that they now are not necessarily proud of.

Love is not unforgiving. It's not using your past as a collar and chain. It's not viewing your bad experiences as scars, but rather dirt that can be washed away with support and genuine care. The best part about loving someone else is accepting their experiences and growing from them, together.

Love is not painful.

Nothing about love involves hurting or forcing your partner in any sense. The only marks your partner should leave on your body is red marks from holding your hand too tight if you slip while you're walking, or lipstick marks on their cheek. No bruises, no handprints, no angry red scratch marks.

Touch is an amazing human sensation; why would you ever accept that sensation to burn like a raging fire, rather than be as soft as a rose pedal? Intimacy is beautiful; the kind of beauty that you share with your significant other and not have it forced on you. Both you and your king/queen deserve crowns of roses and daisies, not of thorns and sticks.

I'm still young. I have much to learn about love, and it will be an adventure to discover what real, true love will look and feel like. Until then, I will keep learning from my experiences of what love definitely is not to find what it truly is.