A lot of people choose not to trifle with love as you have to be willing to sacrifice a lot for it. It seems superficial but it means a lot to a lot of people. It's when you care as much about someone as you do for yourself.
My personal take on 'love' is the desire to prioritise someone else over yourself without wanting a reward. Choosing to spend time with someone else when you would prefer to spend it alone. Giving something you want to someone else. Using your time and/or money to prepare a gift for someone, they're all signs of love. You do it because you want them to be happy or have an easier time, not because you want something from them. It doesn't necessarily have to be romantic either, platonic love also features a degree of willing self-sacrifice!
Love is...complicated. I think the word has been overused and applied to so many different things now that it has lost much of its original meaning; or at least, the stereotypical - or "traditional" if you don't like that idea of stereotyping - definition is no longer the sole or even the defining meaning of the word. Really, love means whatever you want it to mean; like all feelings and abstract concepts it is entirely self-centered. Which I suppose, in a way, is the same as saying that its entirely meaningless in an objective sense, because only you as an individual can give it meaning, and your definition will only ever be yours. I suppose I'm still discovering what love is to me. All I can really say is that it is only the tip of the iceberg and a very inadequate descriptor for the thoughts and feelings I have for my partner. Calling it "love" would be doing it a gross disservice.
For me, love is when you care about the persion and that person makes you happy. You are ready to sacrifice things for them. You can love your parents, friends and others. We think when someone says I love you, always mean that they want you to be their soulmate but it can be different.
