How do you know when you're in love?

Maybe this is an odd question. Maybe everyone else in the world simply knows, without doubt, when they are in love. But, somehow, I doubt that.

I'm not here to give advice, or to announce the answer to the world. But as a person who, to her knowledge, has never been in love, I can't help but wonder what it is the rest of you feel.

Here I sit as a curious human being, and even more so, an inquisitive writer. Suddenly, I realize that I am working on a book that requires me to have some knowledge of non-superficial romance, of what draws one person to another and causes them to believe they cannot live without the other. I have no idea.

To be in love sounds like such a wonderful thing, but most of the relationships I have seen in my life have been absolute disasters. I know more of distrust and the failure of unions than that blissful four letter word.

I've heard it said that each of us is given half a soul. We spend our lives seeking the other half. If we are lucky we will find the person who holds the other half and makes us complete. That is when the magic of true love occurs. And once complete, how could these people ever bear to be separated again?

But then I wonder, what about those people who have always felt complete, and never really had a need of another? Were they born with an entire soul? Are they destined to travel through life alone? And since they are already complete do they ever feel alone or miss what those who were not whole at birth seek?

This is such a complicated topic.

I suppose I could just study the fictional relationships on television, in movies and books , but, I think these would pale in comparison to the real thing.

I'll find a way to write what I need, I always do. Perhaps viewing from the darker side that I know and turning it to face the light will give me the emotion that I need. But I cannot help but wonder how believable I can make the relationship in my story if I have never experienced even the faintest version of it.