From Greek mythology to romance novels, movies, and viral videos on social media, stories of love capture our imagination. Plato was the pioneer in analyzing love. In his Sympósion he wrote about Socrates and his fellow drinking buddies debating about Eros, the God of Love. For the ancient Greek philosophers Eros did not just mean erotic love but love was understood as a phenomenon capable of inspiring courage and vanquishing man’s natural fear of death. 800 years later, Roman philosopher Saint Augustinus,  a docile follower of Plato, distinguished between falling in love with god and falling in love with ordinary beings or one’s self. In Augustus’ world, divine love was supreme.

It was a different love the ancient philosophers were debating about. The love we know today is the greatest invention of the 19th century. It was the time when parents stopped making the selection and prospective lovers needed to find one another and then determine the extent of mutual attraction. Bit by bit it became common ground that the simplest and the single greatest act a person can do is to love.

There are so many different kinds of love: There is love at first sight. There is unconditional love and blind love. There is romantic love and requited love. There is passionate love and Platonic love. Between antisemitic philosopher Martin Heidegger and his young Jewish student Hannah Arendt there was nothing but crazy love.

Wherever I used to live, there was a groovy kind of love: In Iran I learned that a so-called Sigheh, a marriage concluded at a mosque next to the old Tehran airport for a pre-determined period of time, could actually predate real love.  While living in the United States, my American bachelor buddies went to Cabo San Lucas in order to circumvent strict NYC dating rules.

In Sri Lanka lovers often needed to start as an “umbrella couple”. Every evening, come sunset, dozens of these couples were waiting at Colombo’s Galle Face Green for a beautiful Indian Ocean sunset, hiding under an umbrella, to avoid from the curios conservative public.Whereas Brazilians were taking it as easy as ever, inventing even a frivolous Ro Carnival parade for their happy-go-lucky attitude to love: “Simpatia é quase amor”.Scottish rock band Nazareth expressed some qualms: Love hurts. German Neue-Deutsche-Wellle singer Nena put it this way, leaving no doubt:Liebe will nicht, Liebe kämpft nicht, Liebe wird nicht, Liebe ist. Liebe sucht nicht, Liebe fragt nicht, Liebe ist, so wie du bist.  Liebe ist. Love is all around, all over the world.