Know thyself?

For just a minute think about being in love... It looks appealing right? But love is equally as painful as pleasurable, or can be, but that means its just as good not being in love as that can be equally fun and shit... So... Is there a point in being in love if it gives us equal benefits as not? It would need to be better right? How do we even know we're in love? Differentiating between being in love and feeling love has always been a problem for me, can you feel unconditional love for someone and love someone romantically without being in love? And can you ever be in love with someone if it wasn't love at first sight? These are things I think about and worry about a lot, I have done for years now, saying the L word is something I've never taken lightly and I've only ever said it to three men that I've been with, one I was 13 and too young to understand what I was saying but I was with him for nine months ( a big deal at 13) the second I was engaged to for four years and I still don't think I really understood what I was saying ( between 14 and 18 ) and the third I was engaged to for almost six years ( 19 to 24) and now I think although I did love him unconditionally but I'm not sure I ever was 'in love' with him, I thought I was but I think now although I obviously care about him that I don't care about him in a romantic way it's more of a family kinda feeling. So, I'm 25 and I don't think I've ever been in love, I'm not even sure if I know what it means or feels like, what if I can't be in love? Will I know when i am? How? People say 'oh you just know' but that's not true!!! I've felt things before that I thought was being in love and I was wrong, I don't want to be wrong again!! I wasted the last ten years of my life being wrong and I really don't want to do that again, ill be 35!! I'm concerned that if it doesn't jump up and bite me in the ass that ill miss it and end up not knowing what I've got till its gone. Man, life's fucking scary when you think about it the way I do. So do we ever know when we're in love? Does every body fall in love at least once? Is there a chemical reaction in your brain that shows your in love? If so how can it be tested cuz I think it's important to know when this happens, if people could take a test to find out if they're in love would they be promiscuous till they found the person that sets that reaction off? And what if you can fall out of love, you'd have to test yourself weekly? Daily?  What if you could harness the chemical reaction in your brain that makes you in love? You could sell it to save marriages, use it as a weapon of war? Like a gas? Riot control? Do you have to be sexually attracted to someone to be in love with them? I think the whole way were brought up to believe you only love once is a real problem in today's world, I understand why we're brought up that way too, it's because of religion and no sex till marriage, I guess we're brought up like that to protect us from abuse and promiscuity but I don't think people realise that because we're lead to believe we're only gonna love once and it's wrong to have multiple partners and divorce that we do in fact become more likely to stay unhappy or abuse with someone cuz were lead to believe they are 'the one and only' I spent the last four years with someone cuz I had my heart set on ' in sickness and in health' and ' till death do us part' and truthfully death did almost do us part cuz we almost psychologically killed each other! Lets face it, 7.5 billion people out there, at least, there's gonna be more than one perfect partner out there for each of us and honestly that perfect partner might not think your their perfect partner, it's never to late to be happy and you should never try to make someone happy who doesn't want to do the same for you, magnets that stay together best have equal pull. I don't know much but that I do know. I've learnt a lot from life and the main thing I've learnt is that I've got a lot more to learn. A wise man doth know when he's been a fool..... Or something like that was said by Shakespeare I believe.. Well I know I don't know a lot, the older I get the less I feel like I know lol. Perhaps ignorance is bliss and I should stop trying to know about everything, self exploration excites me but what if I don't like what I find, will I ever be able to accept myself? To know I'm not actually as moral as I think? As honest as I think? To know just how much of a cunt I really am? And to accept it knowing I can't change? How can you love yourself knowing how faulted you are? Would you be able to love yourself unconditionally? Could you love yourself looking beyond the faults as you would someone else? I dunno? Could you accept yourself as you are truly knowing you couldn't accept someone else with your faults? If you can't accept and love yourself with all the faults you know you have can you truly love someone else not knowing if they're as faulted as you? The worry would always be there that someone is as able as you to hide faults that you can't accept, would anyone love anyone if they really knew all their faults? Let alone allow themselves to fall in love with someone they knew could hurt them the way they could hurt someone else? Ignorance is definitely bliss xxxx