In Love

A lot of our members have requested some guidance on how to answer this question, because it's a question that a great many women struggle to answer with conviction.

Of course, there is no infallible litmus test. How boring life would be if there were! So this article is not intended to give you any sort of checklist that leads you to an easy answer. I'll leave such contrivances to the teenage magazines.

What I aim to do is provide you with some food-for-thought that will help you, if you are at all unsure, to make up your mind about what love means to you, and whether you are in love or not. And, even if you already know that you are in love, I'll try to provide some guidance and support if you want to make your love-life more meaningful and rewarding.

Quite possibly, love is one of the most over-used and abused words in the English language. In spite of the considerable efforts of our most accomplished poets and writers to capture the beauty of the word, its high currency is commonly devalued to the point of worthlessness. Here in England, for example, you can find yourself addressed as "Love" or "My love" by a shop assistant who has never before laid eyes upon you as you make a trivial purchase at a store.