From Wikipedia the definition of love is the following:

"Love is any of a number of emotions and experiences related to a sense of strong affection and attachment"

Apart from this definition there are thousands of others and each give a different explanation for this phenomena. Therefore it seems that there are thousands of different types of love. In such a case what is the magic formula for the true love – the one that lasts a lifetime and that you never get bored or tired of each other.

It seems to be a difficult question to answer since we all know that our emotions are temporary and that even real love often ends. To tackle the problem we will take a look at three main different types of love that there are. These are Eros, Philos and Agape or translated into plain English – physical, mental and spiritual.

Eros or physical love is based on sexual attraction between the two people. This kind of love is often very superficial and therefore cannot last long as two people eventually get bored of each other. Eros love is usually the first step in a romantic relationship, and if the two people are lucky enough to be compatible on a deeper level, then this love can go on to the next stage – the Philos love.

Philos love is based on mutual understanding and compassion. When experiencing Philos love, people connect on a mental level and their relationship has a "give-and-take" character, rather than just selfish "take" of Eros (… Isn’t it true? With physical attraction you will mostly think of your benefit only). Friendship is the central element of this type of love.

The ultimate state of love is Agape. This is the unconditional love. This is the state where you completely lose sense of your personal self and emit love without any questions. It is really difficult for most people to understand, because we are too grounded to Earth. Take for example a situation where someone steals your wallet. In such a case an average person will curse the burglar and wish he gets caught. However with Agape love, you’d wholeheartedly pray for this person, because you unconditionally wish him the best and do not take your personal emotions into account, but will try to understand that person and why he did what he did.

So it seems that true love does exist. It is, however, probably not as we envisioned it – we don’t get any direct benefit from it and sometimes it’s not even mutual. This makes the formula for true love seem a little bit more obvious – the answer is within you. It is not whether you can find the right match or not, but rather whether you have the ability to love someone unconditionally or not. It is not about the compatibility levels, but it is about your ability to selflessly give without hoping for anything in return.