The Four letter - everything or nothing

Love.... now that's a word I get to hear and see about in every other movie I watch. It's quite funny really that most of them portray love in almost the same fashion. The hero and heroine do almost the exact same things to portray their love on screen. But is love really confined to such a small circle of emotions and events. The concept of love actually appeared quite superfluous to me when i was in school. I never gave it much thought. I was too busy reading books, climbing trees (I did a lot of that when I was younger) and playing basketball. And squeezing my academics among it all...

Then as I grew closer to getting out of my teens , I started to wonder what exactly is it? The kind of love I am talking about is between a man and woman who actually believe that they can spend the rest of their lives together. Sometimes defying their very own families and friends and some other times with the blessings of all.
I am quite a cynic and have never really believed in "love" and have an equally supportive family, who still warn me about every guy I talk to and often lecture me on why the concept of love is all crap. It is almost a forbidden topic. But in spite of that me as curious as ever decided to explore and see if I can really figure out what it is
During the time I have spent in college I have been given varied perspectives on the concept of love. I know people who change their partners' at least once every three months and call it love every single time. Then I know people who were very good friends and decided to take it to the next level. Then of course the love at first sight people, strangers who meet and fall head over heels in love. Then those who meet, who instantly have a good rapport with each other, who then take it, slow n steady. I have met all these kinds of people but I have never been able to put myself in their shoes. I don't really know what cue they get to consider themselves in love... And I always felt even love has to have a certain attraction element to make it work, so do they take that into consideration..or the rapport or what?

I have this friend who likes quite a few guys a lot, feels comfortable with them, misses them etc. and since people define love with all these factors, she often asks me "how will I ever know if am in love?", now that's a million dollar question. I am the last person on earth she should be asking this question to.

But sometimes I feel maybe I'm being too harsh by not believing in it because when I see me sister and my bro-in-law (they had a love marriage. now I know what you are thinking, that's a long story :)).... their love is almost infectious that it always brings a smile to my face...and I find another friend and her bf...and they look at each other as if their heads are stuck in that position, almost as if they cannot take their eyes off each other (well this is not even a scene in a movie) they've been doing it for years now so I think it will last....lol...
But then there is always the other side to the coin; I have seen some equally bad ones. People who were in a "love"ly relationship but found someone outside more attractive and left their partners And then a friend who got into a relationship and the partner has almost taken over that person's world, decides everything starting from whom that person talks to. And then I recently lent a shoulder to a friend who has just broke up because the patner turned out to be someone completely different from the one she fell in love with.
Now I know its just human tendency to immediately classify the former set of relationships as "true" love and latter set as "false" love or something along those lines. But after listening to various experiences of people in love and out of it, I think no one can really define what it is.
And the other question, which often arises, is "Is there only one true love for every person"?? (All the romantic novels claim that). But even shahruk (lots of my friends consider him god) was proved wrong in kuch kuch hota hai...so ultimately I think am as confused as I started...lol...
My cousin once told me that when you keep your palms together and if the lines on your palms meet all points of contact then you are bound to find true love...Well I did try it and guess what, it does not meet even at one single point...lol...and so I don't think I am likely to find out what love is all about...but if your palms favor you then good for you (or bad for you), that's upto you to find out...:-)