>>1453The other day, I discussed love at length with a friend. We were on the first floor of a café, a very nice place, with old, uneven wooden furniture and floral-pattern cushions. As we sipped our tea (Darjeeling and Earl Grey), we tried to work out a definition, a formula, for love.
At first, we agreed that two necessary ingredients for love are friendship and lust. You can't love someone without enjoying their company like a friend, and it seemed clear that some sexual attraction had to be involved. (We later came to doubt this, however: what about couples with no sex drive, such as some elderly couples?) But, even if those two conditions are necessary, there might be a third 'X factor' which makes it love. I can imagine being friends with a stunningly beautiful girl, for whom I have lust, without loving her. That suggests that something else is involved. However, even after discussing it for an hour, we couldn't come up with any third factor.
Anon, have you had a friend you were attracted to? If so, do you think there is any other factor you lacked, which, if it had been there, would have made it add up to love?