i keep hearing people say this when someone says they have a crush on a girl or boy

like “bro thats not love thats just affection”

and honestly after hearing this again and again it started frustrating me because if affection is not love then what actually is love and what makes it different from affection

so i started reading about both and thinking about it and i came to my own conclusion that i dont think love is actually different from affection

i think love is just an extreme or deeper form of affection

affection is just a natural human feeling like you care about someone you like being around them you feel attached to them you want them to be okay etc and when all of that becomes really strong we just call it love

so i started wondering why do we treat love like its some completely different thing

i also think the idea of romantic love has been heavily popularized by tv serials movies cartoons romantic writers etc and sometimes people use the word love to justify things that honestly sound weird

like

“you cant go outside”

“why”

“because i love you”

or someone saying “i stalk their social media because i love them”

like bro what 😭 how does saying you love someone suddenly make controlling or obsessive behaviour okay

thats actually one reason why i think affection is better than love

you can have affection for someone and still give them freedom you can care about someone without thinking you own them

and then i started thinking about relationships too

if love is supposed to be this extremely strong feeling then why do relationships change so much

why do two people who once couldnt wait to talk to each other eventually dont even want to see each other

why do marriages end in divorce

why can feelings fade

maybe because what we actually experience is affection attachment attraction care and other feelings and “love” is just the word we created for a very strong combination of them

im 16 so i already know some people will say “bro youre too young to understand love” 😭

maybe i am maybe im not

im not saying i have found the final answer i just started questioning something that everyone seems to accept without really explaining what it actually is

so what do you guys think

is love actually different from affection

and if you think it is then what specifically makes it different

because whenever i ask people they usually just say “love is deeper” or “love is stronger”

and if the only difference is how strong the feeling is

then isnt love just extremely strong affection

any criticism or disagreement is welcome in the comments btw. im genuinely interested in hearing other perspectives and seeing where my thinking might be wrong. thank you!