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Love is a mirage. It’s a perceptual hallucination and it is intangible. That’s what people say.

But I beg to differ.

Love is measurable if you know how to measure it. If you know the parameter that dictates love, then you can also measure it.

It was after I came to know about this definition of love that I started believing that love is measurable.  

The quote:

“Love is the unselfish, loyal, and benevolent concern for someone”.

The keyword in the above quote is ‘concern’, which makes the core measurable parameter. I call it my ‘concernometer’.  

On elaborating about ‘concern’, I would say, it is the concern for someone’s well-being and safety, to be precise.

For example, ‘it is someone who would get perturbed (at varying degrees) at hearing even about your minor ill-health’.

Likewise, someone who gets worried when (say) you go out alone, at night, to a location that is not considered safe. S/he either stops you from going, asks someone to escort you, or keeps advising you of ways to keep yourself safe.

Leave your parents out of this experiment. They fit into the definition anyway.

Identify 5 persons close to you. For example, your friends, your spouse, your girl/boyfriends, your relatives, or anyone who matters in your life. Always choose odd numbers to remove bias.

Create an imaginary scale, (say) 1 to 10, 1 the least and 10 the most.

You should create your yardstick to measure it. For instance, to measure ‘concern’ for your well-being, ‘to what extent the person would go to ensure your well-being’? Similarly, ‘to what extent the person would go to ensure your safety’?

You now have the parameters, the scale to measure someone’s love for you, and indeed the ‘concernometer’.

I am sure you will be more candid about measuring love, like the way I do.