How to love. This is such a simple statement, so easy to say and so nice when it rolls off your tongue. But how do you honestly "love" and be "loved"? Maybe you can look it up on WikiHow, look at all the adorable graphics of cartoon characters in love with each other and in love with themselves. Or you can just Google it. You'll find a great song by Lil' Wayne (who I, personally, am not sure if he actually knows "How to love"). So, what is love? And how does one come across it? Or more importantly, how does one use it?

Being a teenager myself, I have gone through plenty of sappy phases where I've dreamt of perfect love stories. Slow dancing in the moonlight. Being held tightly in someone's warm, forgiving arms. Having rocks thrown at my window. Romantic rides on white horses. Having roses and chocolates handed to you on Valentine's day by that someone special. But now, as I totally write this story freehand without ever having realized before I started typing that this story would have come out like this, I go over love in my mind. (Just did the WikiHow search, by the way, just to see what all you guys that actually try it are going to find). On that WikiHow page, it describes loving yourself before you can ever love anyone else. True, true. So, I guess the internet isn't completely full of lies. Last night I snuggled up with my iPod while texting my boys, and a song that I've heard a hundred times came on. Love Somebody by Maroon5. As Adam Levine's gorgous voice echoed into my ears, singing about his dreams for having a soul-mate, I realized that everyone wants that... that love. In another song I've heard (sorry for bringing up music so much, it's just a big part of my life), it's lyrics read: "Everybody wants to love, everybody wants to be loved." Which I realized is very true. Going back to that Maroon5 song of last night, I listened very hard to the words being sung. Some of the words that clung to me were: "If I fall for you, I'll never be the same" "I think about you every single day" "I want to feel like we're never gonna ever stop" "Love me today, don't leave me tomorrow". As I pondered these words, I was shaken out of my crazy dreams of chocolate and snow-colored horses. I have a life and I can love just as easily as anyone in any of those sappy romance stories. You can, too, I'm sure. So, I go back to that original question: How do you love?

Well, I think it comes natural partially. We are all born with the wish to love somebody and be loved in return. And, as WikiHow proudly states, you need to learn to love yourself before you can love and be loved by someone else. In that Lil' Wayne song (too many songs, I know) he sings about a beautiful girl who is so uncertain of herself. "You had a lot of moments that didn't last forever" "You can't have a man looking at you for 5 seconds without you being insecure" "You had a lot of dreams that transform to visions

The fact that you saw the world affected all your decisions
But it wasn't your fault, wasn't in your intentions". Which I think is how a lot of people are. Now, I don't mean to be lecturing you guys about love or self-concept or anything like that, in fact I have no idea where this led or if it's even still considered Fictional Romance (I promise that's what I set out for it to be) but I think that there is no perfect recipe of "how to love". You just have to figure it out on your own. Maybe, a certain song will come on that will snap you awake and make you realize what you're doing wrong in a relationship. Maybe it will make you save a marriage, find that person of your dreams, or inspire you to get a little flirtier with your crush. Anyone can love and anyone can be loved. Now, love and romance is definitely not my topic (Horror and comedy is, haha) but I just felt that maybe someone on this site needed to read this, to know that romance isn't just a vision that you have in your room at night. It's real. But you've got to make it real, or it will only be the feeling you get when you're daydreaming about your crush in Math class. You all hear the word "love" so much (especially throughout this article, ha) but it's up to you to really understand what it means to you. Buy your babe that chocolate if that's what it takes. Be the one to throw those rocks. But make it happen. Figure out how to love.