Love is real.

The hierarchy of love goes as follows: Children < Women < Men.

When going down the hierarchy, "love" is sacrifice, protection, and provision. Men sacrifice/protect/provide for women and children as a demonstration of our love. Women sacrifice/protect/provide for children as a demonstration of their love, but they aren't biologically wired to love a man in this manner.

When going up the hierarchy, "love" is admiration: a concentration of respect. This form of love is highly conditional, especially for women due to the high amount of alternatives she has for any particular man to protect and provide for her.

This is why women love opportunistically, and men love idealistically. A man has no one putting a gun to his head telling him to love a woman (that is, assuming he didn't make the mistake of putting a ring on her - then he must continue to love her by law or he'll be stripped of his assets and thrown into the streets). But the bottom line is that when a man love a woman, it's idealistic - he loves her for the sake of it.

That last part is true because men do not need women in order to achieve fulfillment. Our biological prerogative is to internalize and accomplish a Mission in life, and women are not a component of that mission. Women, on the other hand, need men because the biological prerogative of femininity is a relationship, specifically with a man. In other words, women achieve fulfillment through their relationships with men, whereas men do not need to be in a relationship with a woman in order to be fulfilled.

When love occurs between a man and a woman, there is only one prerequisite which is absolutely necessary: Attraction. Without it, love cannot exist. Which is why "love" is an instinctual, natural-occurring phenomenon.