Essays About Love: 20 Intriguing Ideas for Students
Love can make a fascinating essay topic, but sometimes finding the perfect topic idea is challenging. Here are 20 of the best essays about love.
Writers have often explored the subject of love and what it means throughout history. In his book Essays in Love , Alain de Botton creates an in-depth essay on what love looks like, exploring a fictional couple’s relationship while highlighting many facts about love. This book shows how much there is to say about love as it beautifully merges non-fiction with fiction work.
The New York Times published an entire column dedicated to essays on modern love, and many prize-winning reporters often contribute to the collection. With so many published works available, the subject of love has much to be explored.
If you are going to write an essay about love and its effects, you will need a winning topic idea. Here are the top 20 topic ideas for essays about love. These topics will give you plenty to think about and explore as you take a stab at the subject that has stumped philosophers, writers, and poets since the dawn of time.
For help with your essays, check out our round-up of the best essay checkers .
1. Outline the Definition of Love
2. describe your favorite love story, 3. what true love looks like, 4. discuss how human beings are hard-wired for love, 5. explore the different types of love, 6. determine the true meaning of love, 7. discuss the power of love, 8. do soul mates exist, 9. determine if all relationships should experience a break-up, 10. does love at first sight exist, 11. explore love between parents and children, 12. discuss the disadvantages of love, 13. ask if love is blind, 14. discuss the chemical changes that love causes, 15. outline the ethics of love, 16. the inevitability of heartbreak, 17. the role of love in a particular genre of literature, 18. is love freeing or oppressing, 19. does love make people do foolish things, 20. explore the theme of love from your favorite book or movie.
Defining love may not be as easy as you think. While it seems simple, love is an abstract concept with multiple potential meanings. Exploring these meanings and then creating your own definition of love can make an engaging essay topic.
To do this, first, consider the various conventional definitions of love. Then, compare and contrast them until you come up with your own definition of love.
One essay about love you could tackle is describing and analyzing a favorite love story. This story could be from a fiction tale or real life. It could even be your love story.
As you analyze and explain the love story, talk about the highs and lows of love. Showcase the hard and great parts of this love story, then end the essay by talking about what real love looks like (outside the flowers and chocolates).
This essay will explore what true love looks like. With this essay idea, you could contrast true love with the romantic love often shown in movies. This contrast would help the reader see how true love looks in real life.
An essay about what true love looks like could allow you to explore this kind of love in many different facets. It would allow you to discuss whether or not someone is, in fact, in true love. You could demonstrate why saying “I love you” is not enough through the essay.
There seems to be something ingrained in human nature to seek love. This fact could make an interesting essay on love and its meaning, allowing you to explore why this might be and how it plays out in human relationships.
Because humans seem to gravitate toward committed relationships, you could argue that we are hard-wired for love. But, again, this is an essay option that has room for growth as you develop your thoughts.
There are many different types of love. For example, while you can have romantic love between a couple, you may also have family love among family members and love between friends. Each of these types of love has a different expression, which could lend itself well to an interesting essay topic.
Writing an essay that compares and contrasts the different types of love would allow you to delve more deeply into the concept of love and what makes up a loving relationship.
What does love mean? This question is not as easy to answer as you might think. However, this essay topic could give you quite a bit of room to develop your ideas about love.
While exploring this essay topic, you may discover that love means different things to different people. For some, love is about how someone makes another person feel. To others, it is about actions performed. By exploring this in an essay, you can attempt to define love for your readers.
What can love make people do? This question could lend itself well to an essay topic. The power of love is quite intense, and it can make people do things they never thought they could or would do.
With this love essay, you could look at historical examples of love, fiction stories about love relationships, or your own life story and what love had the power to do. Then, at the end of your essay, you can determine how powerful love is.
The idea of a soul mate is someone who you are destined to be with and love above all others. This essay topic would allow you to explore whether or not each individual has a soul mate.
If you determine that they do, you could further discuss how you would identify that soul mate. How can you tell when you have found “the one” right for you? Expanding on this idea could create a very interesting and unique essay.
Break-ups seem inevitable, and strong relationships often come back together afterward. Yet are break-ups truly inevitable? Or are they necessary to create a strong bond? This idea could turn into a fascinating essay topic if you look at both sides of the argument.
On the one hand, you could argue that the break-up experience shows you whether or not your relationship can weather difficult times. On the other hand, you could argue that breaking up damages the trust you’re working to build. Regardless of your conclusion, you can build a solid essay off of this topic idea.
Love, at first sight is a common theme in romance stories, but is it possible? Explore this idea in your essay. You will likely find that love, at first sight, is nothing more than infatuation, not genuine love.
Yet you may discover that sometimes, love, at first sight, does happen. So, determine in your essay how you can differentiate between love and infatuation if it happens to you. Then, conclude with your take on love at first sight and if you think it is possible.
The love between a parent and child is much different than the love between a pair of lovers. This type of love is one-sided, with care and self-sacrifice on the parent’s side. However, the child’s love is often unconditional.
Exploring this dynamic, especially when contrasting parental love with romantic love, provides a compelling essay topic. You would have the opportunity to define this type of love and explore what it looks like in day-to-day life.
Most people want to fall in love and enjoy a loving relationship, but does love have a downside? In an essay, you can explore the disadvantages of love and show how even one of life’s greatest gifts is not without its challenges.
This essay would require you to dig deep and find the potential downsides of love. However, if you give it a little thought, you should be able to discuss several. Finally, end the essay by telling the reader whether or not love is worth it despite the many challenges.
Love is blind is a popular phrase that indicates love allows someone not to see another person’s faults. But is love blind, or is it simply a metaphor that indicates the ability to overlook issues when love is at the helm.
If you think more deeply about this quote, you will probably determine that love is not blind. Rather, love for someone can overshadow their character flaws and shortcomings. When love is strong, these things fall by the wayside. Discuss this in your essay, and draw your own conclusion to decide if love is blind.
When someone falls in love, their body feels specific hormonal and chemical changes. These changes make it easier to want to spend time with the person. Yet they can be fascinating to study, and you could ask whether or not love is just chemical reactions or something more.
Grab a science book or two and see if you can explore these physiological changes from love. From the additional sweating to the flushing of the face, you will find quite a few chemical changes that happen when someone is in love.
Love feels like a positive emotion that does not have many ethical concerns, but this is not true. Several ethical questions come from the world of love. Exploring these would make for an interesting and thoughtful essay.
For example, you could discuss if it is ethically acceptable to love an object or even oneself or love other people. You could discuss if it is appropriate to enter into a physical relationship if there is no love present or if love needs to come first. There are many questions to explore with this love essay.
If you choose to love someone, is heartbreak inevitable? This question could create a lengthy essay. However, some would argue that it is because either your object of affection will eventually leave you through a break-up or death.
Yet do these actions have to cause heartbreak, or are they simply part of the process? Again, this question lends itself well to an essay because it has many aspects and opinions to explore.
Literature is full of stories of love. You could choose a genre, like mythology or science fiction, and explore the role of love in that particular genre. With this essay topic, you may find many instances where love is a vital central theme of the work.
Keep in mind that in some genres, like myths, love becomes a driving force in the plot, while in others, like historical fiction, it may simply be a background part of the story. Therefore, the type of literature you choose for this essay would significantly impact the way your essay develops.
Most people want to fall in love, but is love freeing or oppressing? The answer may depend on who your loved ones are. Love should free individuals to authentically be who they are, not tie them into something they are not.
Yet there is a side of love that can be viewed as oppressive, deepening on your viewpoint. For example, you should stay committed to just that individual when you are in a committed relationship with someone else. Is this freeing or oppressive? Gather opinions through research and compare the answers for a compelling essay.
You can easily find stories of people that did foolish things for love. These stories could translate into interesting and engaging essays. You could conclude the answer to whether or not love makes people do foolish things.
Your answer will depend on your research, but chances are you will find that, yes, love makes people foolish at times. Then you could use your essay to discuss whether or not it is still reasonable to think that falling in love is a good thing, although it makes people act foolishly at times.
Most fiction works have love in them in some way. This may not be romantic love, but you will likely find characters who love something or someone.
Use that fact to create an essay. Pick your favorite story, either through film or written works, and explore what love looks like in that work. Discuss the character development, storyline, and themes and show how love is used to create compelling storylines.
If you are interested in learning more, check out our essay writing tips !
- Share full article
Advertisement
Supported by
Modern Love
25 Modern Love Essays to Read if You Want to Laugh, Cringe and Cry
The popular column, which began in 2004, has become a podcast, a book and an Amazon Prime streaming series. Here are some of its greatest hits.
By Daniel Jones
Whether you’re new to Modern Love or a longtime fan, we think you’ll enjoy this collection of some of our most memorable essays. You’ll find some of our most read and most shared of all time, and others that really got readers talking (and tweeting, and sharing). We present, in no particular order, the quirky, the profound, the head scratching and the heartbreaking. (A handful of these essays and dozens more of our most memorable columns can also be found in the Modern Love anthology .)
To keep up on all things Modern Love — our weekly essays, podcast episodes and batches of Tiny Love Stories, along with other relationship-based reads from The Times — sign up for Love Letter , a weekly email. And check out the “Modern Love” television series , based on this column, on Amazon Prime Video.
1. No Sound, No Fury, No Marriage
By Laura Pritchett
After her peaceful marriage quietly dissolves, a woman comes to appreciate the vitality of conflict and confrontation.
2. Sometimes, It’s Not You, or the Math
By Sara Eckel
He didn’t care that I was 39 and hadn’t had a serious boyfriend in eight years.
3. Am I Gay or Straight? Maybe This Fun Quiz Will Tell Me
By Katie Heaney
A young woman seeks answers to her sexual orientation online, where the endless quizzes she takes deliver whatever label she wants.
4. First I Met My Children. Then My Girlfriend. They’re Related.
By Aaron Long
A former sperm donor, searching online, finds both offspring and love.
5. What Shamu Taught Me About a Happy Marriage
By Amy Sutherland
I wanted — needed — to nudge my husband a little closer to perfect.
6. The 12-Hour Goodbye That Started Everything
By Miriam Johnson
A spurned woman confronts the question: When you lose love, should you even try to get over it?
7. During a Night of Casual Sex, Urgent Messages Go Unanswered
By Andrew Rannells
On one of the most consequential evenings of his life, a young man still finding himself wishes he had picked up the phone.
8. Let’s Meet Again in Five Years
By Karen B. Kaplan
They thought college was too soon for lifelong love, so they scheduled their next date for a little later — 60 months.
9. My Body Doesn’t Belong to You
By Heather Burtman
A young woman who finds herself being catcalled, followed and grabbed at wonders why some men seem to think a female body is public property.
10. Making a Marriage Magically Tidy
By Helen Ellis
At her husband’s suggestion (and with the wisdom of Marie Kondo), a recovering slob discovers the sexiness of cleanliness.
11. Loved and Lost? It’s O.K., Especially if You Win
By Veronica Chambers
It’s O.K. to fall deeply for one loser after another. It’s O.K. to show up at a guy’s house with a dozen roses and declare your undying affection.
12. To Stay Married, Embrace Change
By Ada Calhoun
It’s unrealistic to expect your spouse to forever remain the same person you fell in love with.
13. After 264 Haircuts, a Marriage Ends
By William Dameron
He acknowledged he was gay and left his wife, but he kept returning home for their monthly ritual.
14. In the Waiting Room of Estranged Spouses
By Benjamin Hertwig
An ex-soldier, rocked by infidelity, finds hope in a chance meeting with a mother and her young son.
15. What Sleeping With Married Men Taught Me About Infidelity
By Karin Jones
A divorced woman seeking no-strings-attached liaisons learns a sobering lesson about men and marriage.
16. Sharing a Cab, and My Toes
By Julia Anne Miller
During a taxi ride home a co-worker makes a surprising request.
17. On Tinder, Off Sex
By Ali Rachel Pearl
Living a life where secondary abstinence isn’t exactly a first choice.
18. No Labels, No Drama, Right?
By Jordana Narin
The winner of the 2015 Modern Love college essay contest, who was then a sophomore at Columbia University, writes about her generation’s reluctance to define relationships.
19. Those Aren’t Fighting Words, Dear
By Laura A. Munson
“I don’t love you anymore,” my husband said, but I survived the sucker punch.
20. You May Want to Marry My Husband
By Amy Krouse Rosenthal
After learning she doesn’t have long to live, a woman composes a dating profile for the man she will leave behind.
21. Somewhere Inside, a Path to Empathy
By David Finch
A man learns to deal with Asperger’s syndrome, with the help of his wife.
22. My Husband Is Now My Wife
By Diane Daniel
He took the first step in becoming a woman: surgery to help his face look more feminine.
23. Would My Heart Outrun Its Pursuer?
By Gary Presley
How might a woman love the millstone I believed myself to be?
24. When Eve and Eve Bit the Apple
By Kristen Scharold
A Christian woman’s identity is challenged by her love for church and another woman.
25. To Fall in Love With Anyone, Do This
By Mandy Len Catron
What happens if you decide that falling in love is not something that happens to you, but something that you do?
Daniel Jones is the editor of Modern Love.
Modern Love can be reached at [email protected] .
Want more? Watch the trailer for the Modern Love TV show ; read past Modern Love columns and Tiny Love Stories ; listen to the Modern Love Podcast on iTunes , Spotify or Google Play Music ; check out the updated anthology “ Modern Love: True Stories of Love, Loss, and Redemption ;” and follow Modern Love on Facebook .
Stories of Love to Nourish Your Soul
Modern Love Turns 20: To celebrate the Modern Love column’s 20th anniversary, we put together a special package of articles exploring the column’s history and impact .
Men, Please Stop Talking About Burning Man: Am I the only woman meeting Burning Mansplainers on dates ?
We Were Just Voices in a Dark Room: Having barely met, a woman and her partner fell for each other through late-night phone calls. Did that mean they were meant for each other ?
I Decentered Men. Decentering Desire for Men Is Harder: A woman discovered that organizing her life around some idyllic future husband had always felt wrong .
Friends for 16 Years. Lovers for One Night: Two people realized much too late that they were right for each other .
Looking for My Mother in All the Wrong People: When a woman holds her son for the first time, a storm of incomplete memories clears .
How Does a Man Buy a Girl’s Swimsuit?: As a gay man who adopted a daughter, I had gaps in parental knowledge .
Home — Essay Samples — Life — Love — The Many Faces of Love
The Many Faces of Love
- Categories: Love Types of Love
About this sample
Words: 533 |
Published: Feb 7, 2024
Words: 533 | Page: 1 | 3 min read
Table of contents
The beginning of love, early stages of love, obstacles and challenges, the power of love, the dark side of love, different forms of love.
Cite this Essay
To export a reference to this article please select a referencing style below:
Let us write you an essay from scratch
- 450+ experts on 30 subjects ready to help
- Custom essay delivered in as few as 3 hours
Get high-quality help
Dr. Karlyna PhD
Verified writer
- Expert in: Life
+ 120 experts online
By clicking “Check Writers’ Offers”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy . We’ll occasionally send you promo and account related email
No need to pay just yet!
Related Essays
2 pages / 804 words
3 pages / 1375 words
2 pages / 879 words
2 pages / 834 words
Remember! This is just a sample.
You can get your custom paper by one of our expert writers.
121 writers online
Still can’t find what you need?
Browse our vast selection of original essay samples, each expertly formatted and styled
Related Essays on Love
Money can't buy love or happiness. This assertion is a reminder of the profound truth that material wealth, while important for meeting basic needs, cannot replace the intangible and deeply fulfilling aspects of human life. In a [...]
Stop Kiss, a play written by Diana Son, delves into the complexities of human relationships, the power of love, and the consequences of societal norms. Set in New York City, the play revolves around the lives of two women, [...]
Edna St. Vincent Millay's sonnet "Love Is Not All" eloquently addresses the limits and impermanence of love in the human experience. Through vivid imagery and nuanced argumentation, Millay challenges the traditional romantic [...]
The myth of Echo and Narcissus, originating from Ovid's "Metamorphoses," is a compelling narrative that explores themes of unrequited love, self-obsession, and the consequences of vanity. This ancient story, while seemingly [...]
People have always tried to escape from their reality, and some people find this escape through love. Love might be the escape from reality in 984 for different characters, who are thenselves represented in various ways. We [...]
In The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, Offred, the main character lives in Gilead, a dystopia where fertile women are solely used to reproduce children. Known as handmaids, these women are confined into prison-like [...]
Related Topics
By clicking “Send”, you agree to our Terms of service and Privacy statement . We will occasionally send you account related emails.
Where do you want us to send this sample?
By clicking “Continue”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy.
Be careful. This essay is not unique
This essay was donated by a student and is likely to have been used and submitted before
Download this Sample
Free samples may contain mistakes and not unique parts
Sorry, we could not paraphrase this essay. Our professional writers can rewrite it and get you a unique paper.
Please check your inbox.
We can write you a custom essay that will follow your exact instructions and meet the deadlines. Let's fix your grades together!
Get Your Personalized Essay in 3 Hours or Less!
We use cookies to personalyze your web-site experience. By continuing we’ll assume you board with our cookie policy .
- Instructions Followed To The Letter
- Deadlines Met At Every Stage
- Unique And Plagiarism Free
IMAGES
VIDEO