William Shakespeare compared it to the north star. Italo Calvino linked it to bloodlust and aggression. It was the subject of virtually every pop song released between 1984 and 1990. Britney Spears does it by accident. What is it? Can you guess?

Love. According to the American Heritage Dictionary, love (romantic love) is easily understood as one of two things. Either it is an "intense affection and warm feelings for another," or it is a "strong sexual desire for another person." Its etymology makes "love" a combination between "lief" and "libido"– something dear (financially or otherwise) that you also want to sleep with. Simple, right?

HA! If love is anything, it is not simple. In popular culture, (Shakespeare and Britney included) love is one of the most frequently, and the most unconvincingly, presented feelings out there. It can be the blanket excuse for an entire movie’s worth of stupid actions. It can heal all wounds, or it can make you die.

Despite its contradictory and inevitably vague nature, people continue to be obsessed with the idea of love–especially of falling in love. I once saw a documentary on severely depressed women. Not surprisingly, a good third of those interviewed indicated that a lack of love, of a true romance, was one of the main sources of their illness.

But with so many competing ideas of what being in love, or falling in love is supposed to be, it is difficult to discern exactly what people are talking about. What do people expect from love? After all, we live in a world where one of every two marriages fails, and where the sincerity of human emotion is constantly being put on trial. What has been said about love? What are we buying into when we smile at Zales commercials?

Recently my favorite soap opera, Port Charles, has been promoting what its producers call "Port Charles Fate." The advertisements are done in soft, rose lighting. A sultry female voice, somewhere between a whisper and a groan, urges us to tune in, while flashbacks of the show’s hottest ex-couples flit across the screen. The suggestion, tantalizing indeed, is that in the next week of programming couples who the show’s writers have spent the last year splitting up in various unbelievable and frustrating ways, will finally, fatefully, come together: Kevin will come back to Lucy, Ian and Eve will consummate their secret love. Hell, Luke might even come back for Laura. On Valentine’s Day, the romantic life of Port Charles will be set to right. Ooh-eee.

Love, soap opera style, might seem cheesy and contrived, but the standard elements are all there.

It lies not in our power to love or hate,

For will in us is overruled by fate...

Who ever loved, that loved not at first sight?

The above lines, written by Christopher Marlowe, suggest two key pieces of the love myth: fate and "love at first sight." True–these ideas are not identical. For one thing, people nowadays are very reluctant to acknowledge love at first sight- it seems trite and fantastical. On the other hand, the idea of love as being fated still very much appeals to people–so much so that it might in fact be the crucial element of the love myth. We especially like when love overcomes great odds, like family or geographical difference, in order to unite two people who are destined to be together. There are example of this all over, from Romeo and Juliet to You’ve Got Mail.

Despite their differences, "fated love" and "love at first sight" do have one major point in common: the idea of love as an omnipotent, external force. Love is something that is done to you, with neither your consent nor your understanding. Moreover, your real life–your availability, your personality, your context in general–plays no role whatsoever. This version of the love myth is by definition irrational. It strikes you–like a thunderbolt or an incurable illness–and you are powerless to free yourself from its supernatural grasp.

Along the same lines, it seems that love never ends. We all remember Whitney Houston’s (hideous) cover of Dolly Parton’s "I Will Always Love You." The message here is, of course, that love will last forever–maybe even beyond the grave. The durability of real, or true love, is a strong tradition in writing and thinking, articulated by Shakespeare when he writes the following lines: Let me not to the marriage of true minds/Admit impediments. Love is not love/Which alters when it alteration finds,/ or bends with the remover to remove:/O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark...

So, guess what folks? You’re stuck. Maybe he’ll cheat on you. Maybe she’ll spend all your money. Maybe you’ll even make each other miserable. Too bad, cuz love looks on tempests and is never shaken. This part of the love myth goes hand in hand with "fated love" in that, as something that was both meant to be and indestructible, love becomes the mysterious answer to all of life’s problems.

That’s the myth anyhow. Like a lot of myths, it’s a nice story, but nothing to be taken too seriously. Mostly, we’re cynical these days. We don’t believe in true love, or love at all for that matter. Unfortunately, and despite our best attempts at being blasé, the fact nevertheless remains that, well, "people love love." We like to see it on TV. We like movies about it. We even like to read cheap unimaginative novels about it. And yes, on Valentine’s Day, we even kind of like to get a little miserable about it.

So, no matter how much hype they throw at you in the next week, no matter how many times some stupid commercial makes you feel inadequate for not having a Valentine, take comfort in the semi-immortal words of Stephen Merritt: "love is like a bottle of gin, but a bottle of gin is not like love." And if the bottle of gin doesn’t do it for ya. . . try chocolate. Remember, no one really knows what love is–leave it for the soap operas.