Pondering Love

What is love? I wake up in the morning and I ponder this question over and over, until I've exhausted all meanings and their alternatives of what this simple yet profound word entails. I make myself sick from watching romantic comedies, and envisioning myself in those well plotted situations where in the end I am in his arms and there is a "happy ever after" for me. What girl does not wish for one, especially a girl who has never had a boyfriend, let alone went out on a date. And so the cycle continues as I forever dream that love will happen to me suddenly, and that I'll know when I fall into it deeply.

The question remains though, how does one know when they are in love. I keeping hearing about this butterfly sensation in the pit of ones stomach, which I pegged as a bout of nervousness, and if its not that, it is the sudden shallowness of ones breath, as ones heart contracts and the rapid beating of ones heart is so loud you fear the rest of the world can hear it. Has it happened to me?? Yeah. But whether or not that is love, I do not know. To some this may be naive ramblings of a girl who thinks she knows love, but thats just it, like any other normal girl, I do think I know what love is, though I find solace in the truth that at least I know what infatuation is as well. With that, I can differentiate between the two,and perceive one from the other.
According to an online dictionary, wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn, infatuation is a "foolish and usually extravagant passion or love or admiration" or it is "an object of extravagant short-lived passion". This at least offers some clarity on what love means as well.