Column: The necessity of love

What is love? The triviality of this question never ceases to amaze me. If I were to define this four-letter word based on the imagery society crams down my throat, I would be ridiculously far from the truth. Young men carelessly toss love around; young women let the word float off their lips without hesitation. Love is not simply pink and red hearts, soft whispers, warm bodies and tender touches. It is so much more complicated than that.

To love another human being, and to be in love with that human being, is to be in a state of overwhelming bliss and sadness. Even the most egocentric of us is capable of falling so deeply, so intimately for another human being that he or she consumes our every action or lingers in our every thought. My ambivalence toward love often makes me wonder whether I thoroughly agree with Saint Augustine who said "Better to have loved and lost, than to have never loved at all." At times, love is a painful and gut-wrenching parasite, which murders ambition and motivation and soon seeps all emotion from its host.

Meaningless sex is nothing. Random hook-ups are nothing. These acts are mere petty motions, which ultimately result in a temporary pulse of pure and utter ecstasy, if at least one of the participants is lucky enough. Believe me, I am not at all discounting the necessity of sex.

Despite its brevity, the pleasure that it grants is rather enjoyable (so I hear). But without love, sex becomes something of a chore��a mechanical movement that ends in emptiness and loneliness. Students on this campus, regardless of race, gender or socioeconomic background, eventually find themselves caught up in it. This cycle of insincere sexual interaction becomes simply a way to pass the time. It is difficult to maintain this stance of "no love, no sex" as a young adult in a society that perpetuates sex at every given opportunity. Virgins are currently a rare species, as more and more people rush to have their first sexual experiences in college, either because they were curious as to what all the hype was about, or they simply got sick of their peers' constant babble about the advantages of becoming sexually active. So many complications arise from a life of promiscuity that I can't help but applaud those who have not yet ventured into this stage of adulthood.

The innocence of childhood brings with it a freedom that few of us college students have the privilege of experiencing. All the complications of love: countless nights of tear-stained pillows, along with the ecstasy that love can induce, is all foreign to the simplicity of being a child. Sex is nothing more than a looming concern in worried parents' minds, as their babies play free from care. Yet, as trite as this may sound, love would make this seemingly cold and hyper-sexualized world a better place. As wars thunder outside, people slowly die of AIDS, we sit smugly surrounded by the Gothic towers that shield us. As college students, we sometimes forget about all that is meaningful. Is it too presumptuous of me to assume that everyone is capable of love? Perhaps there are those of us who are so innately melancholy, so jaded and so numb that there will never be an opportunity to fall in love��in every sense of the word. The cruelties of life will not allow it.

I have come to learn that there is not a universal definition for love, nor is there a general list of symptoms associated with this confusing emotion. Love is distinctive from person to person. Some love violently and harshly, while others choose the more predictable love characterized by unadulterated kindness. I love fresh- out-of-the-oil french fries from McDonald's, Steve Madden stilettos, brand new Air Force Ones and food so spicy I can barely make it to the bathroom in time��yet the word love becomes so much more tangible when applied to another individual.