LtS --

Re: your examples

If you ask me, if he doesn't love you back, it's not real love ... or at least, not a loving relationship...

There was a guy in high school that I really loved (I won't say I was "in love with him" because I never got up the courage to tell him how I felt, so I was there alone). He eventually married a wonderful woman, and after I met her, I was able to 'let him go' so to speak, out of my imagination, and let my heart go, too, for that matter... I still love him, but I let the love shift form from "fantasy crush" to "friend", which is what he really was, all along, and as such, I get many more benefits than pains from the relationship.

Genie -- What you say about falling may be true (I still think of jumping and diving as very different verbs than falling, but you may be correct in the dictionary sense). However, I have never been sky diving or bungee jumping, and, as I said in the intro part of my piece, I'm only speaking from my own experience... I'm not saying love is like that for everybody -- just for me...