Not to discount the rest of your post, as I agree with being friends making the romantic part of the relationship even stronger. I talked to my wife online long before we both new that we wanted to be more than friends and I think that is what has kept us through thick and thin for the last 21 years.

But my wife does that too, and it's exasperating. I love you. You're beautiful and sexy so stop selling yourself short.

Three

Two ex-wives and my current girlfriend

I was WAITING. . but y'all disappoint me.

fine. . I'll do it:

Sorry for the thread necro, but the past six weeks or so have been pretty hectic for me and I haven't been around here as much as I would have liked.

A quick off-the-cuff response would be "twice", although if really pressed on it, I think I have only been in love for real just once. I told a couple of high school girlfriends that I "loved" them, but it is highly unlikely that those were actual true feelings of love and more along the lines of "I really like you and doing stuff with you and making out with you, and since we've been dating for a while, I guess I should say something like this so that you know I'm serious about continuing doing stuff and making out with you."

The first time I thought I was in love was with the girl I dated in college. We got together in January of our freshman year, after she kept stopping by my room just to hang out. Apparently, she lived just a couple of towns over from me and used to come into the place where I worked in HS, but she never got up the nerve to approach me then, so she was going to take the opportunity that presented itself in college. We spent a lot of time together that semester, then continued dating that summer and into the fall, with us both skipping lots of classes our sophomore year (I got my worst grades that fall, and my parents were PISSED) to just hang out. I eventually asked her to marry me and she said yes, but at that point, things just stalled. She never wanted to set a date, she didn't want to discuss plans, and she started relying on me to help with her bills and expenses; everyone around me saw what was happening and tried to intervene, but I ignored them because I "loved" her. We graduated and moved into an apartment together, but then she started becoming distant, going out to bars and clubs with her friends more than spending time with me, but it was OK, because I "loved" her and knew she was just blowing off some steam before we settled down. She cheated on me repeatedly and eventually she moved in with one of the guys, which was the instigating act that drove me to return to college and get my life together after wasting five years.

What I've had time to reflect on in the ensuing two decades is that I really don't think that I "loved" her, but rather, I was looking to her to provide me with a stable relationship that I did not get growing up. My parents were the most toxic couple that I have ever known, and I thought that all I had to do was find that one person, that special someone, and I could do marriage better than my parents and have the life that I had been denied as a youth. Sadly, I hitched my hopes to a person who was manipulative and cruel, a user who lied and stole and cheated because she that was the environment she was raised in (her parents were both horrible people as well, cheating and lying and doing things to harm the other emotionally whenever possible).

Honestly, the only person I have ever been truly fallen in love with is my wife of now 18.5 years. I pretty much knew after the first two months or so that she was "THE ONE", as she was kind and caring and stable and interested in creating the kind of life with me that I had always dreamed of having. We could spend hours just sitting and talking, doing nothing but diving deep into each other's thoughts and desires for the future, discussing plans for our "what if" and our "happily ever after". There was a little rough patch about eight months before we married, all of my making due to me being less than forthcoming about some things, but we worked through it and have been building our life together ever since. She gets me and accepts me, with all of my quirks and flaws and faults, and she doesn't try to change me, but rather adapts to who I am and lets me be me, as I do with her. It hasn't been perfect, but I really can't imagine me having this life with anyone else.

I think I've been in love 3 times. 

My dated my first girlfriend Stephanie when I was 13 - it was just dumb kid stuff. She's the best friend of my youngest sister and I still see her every once in a while. She told me I was a great first boyfriend - that was nice to hear.
I thought I was in love, but we would go out frogging and dirtbike riding and other outdoor junk, so I was just figuring things out.

When I was 17 or so I met Andrea - I was living in Alaska and she was from Montana & was visiting her father for the summer. We talked about getting married. When she went back home it sure felt like love - but she never returned any of my letters. 
She was from a very religious family and even though I was raised christian I had lost my faith at this point, so I assume that had something to do with her non-response.
In retrospect it was probably best we didn't get married - I really didn't know who I really was until years later.

I've thought a lot about what is love. 
I understand passion, and desire and need. 
But love? 
My best guess is love is when that person is not around you you miss them. Their absence is a weight on your soul. 
Love isn't some magical glow you feel when you're sitting on the couch next to your partner - love is when that person is out of town for a week you ache for their company. 

I dunno. 

All I know is I met my wife Cyndi in 1992 - we went on our first date in 1995. We had a rocky relationship in the sense that we were both young and dumb and hung out in punk rock bars, cable access studios and road trips. We married in 2005, on the tenth anniversary of our first date. 
While we have our occasional ups and downs we talk about our problems, and honesty is mega important to our relationship. 
I am still super in love with Cyndi and I feel like the luckiest guy in the world to have her in my life. 

I've hesitated posting on this subject because I'm not good enough with words to explain what I feel. farg - this pandemic has been so hard - I've been making my living off of booking live events and running rock clubs for the last 20+ years and right now I can't work. 
But having Cyndi with me, well, we'll make it work. 

So maybe love is also hope? 

I dunno. 

My wife and I made each other mix tapes and sent them to each other when we were still talking on the internet. I listened to very, very little country back then and had no idea who Allison Krause was but she sent me this song. And it's one of the most beautiful songs about love, to me.