What is love?

With Valentine’s Day upon us once again, with it come the obvious and overpriced roses, chocolates, cliché love poems and the love-struck (and not so love-struck) faces – you can see it all around you. Love is most certainly in the air. Which brings us to the question of – What is love? If roses are red and violets are really blue, do we even have the slightest clue as to what this emotion can really do?

Call it cupid or chemistry, there is no denying it, love is a feeling and a strong one at that. You don’t even have to have experienced it first-hand to know that it makes people do crazy things, all you have to do is watch one of the overplayed love-infused dramas gracing our television screens at this time of year to know that love certainly does have a significant role to play in our lives.

So, let’s bring it back to the point of this article, what exactly is love?

Experts and scientists from a variety of fields, ranging from neuroscience to anthropology have been asking this question for years. The exact science behind love is not solid enough to draw any firm conclusions, and regardless of the sensationalised information on the ‘biology of love’ that bombards you after a quick Google search, what it all comes down to is this… simple chemistry.

So, if there really is a specific formula for the elixir that is love, then what exactly is this formula and what does it mean? Let’s find out…