One definition of love

One had impressions of other people, nothing more. Never to hear them think, only to hear what they said; it was a drop in an ocean, a touch across the abyss. A hand holding your hand as you float in the black of space. It wasn't much. They couldn't really know each other very well. … It was such a guess. You would have to talk with someone for years to give the guess any kind of validity. And even then you wouldn't know.

… is this what love was, this desire for a feeling that remained unclear even when felt? is that why people sometimes thought of it as a madness? The words stay the same, even the feelings stay the same, but there are slippages between the words and the feelings, hard to track. The desire to know, to be known, to be cherished for what you are and not what others think you should be… But then, what you are… … Someone who likes you despite yourself, someone more generous to you than you are. … And when you see that, when you feel that – feel loved beyond justice, from some kind of generosity – that sets off certain other feelings. A kind of a glow. A spillover. It caused something to start that felt reciprocal. A mutual recognition. … Not a single supra-organism, but two working together on something not themselves. A duet. A harmony.

 from Kim Stanley Robinson's 2312, p. 498-99