One thing that comes to mind in considering your comment is the notion of love as a divine quality of God (1 John 4:7-8). This being the case (from a Christian world view) love is a transcendent concept which we can only comprehend in part as finite beings attempting to understand the infinite. To that end, all of our definitions will fall short of the totality that is love.

C.S. Lewis in his work, as mentioned in this blog series, is the best work I know of to describe the different facets of love as we understand them. His writing attempts to bring various aspects of what we call love into view so we can get a better understanding of the mosaic that is the quality we call love.

Thought provoking questions, Mark.

I feel it is worth asking honestly where these boundaries are and why they have been placed there?

I say that because I wonder is it possible for example for there to be a continuum between love and intimacy and lust and self destructiveness rather than a boundary?

I realize that a continuum would make life much more difficult to deal with because it could become nearly impossible to distinguish at any given time exactly where one is in relationship to another person.

So, as difficult as it may be to live in an unbound living reality such a world view might explain something about why, for six billion individual souls, love continues to hurt as well as inspire art and spiritual awakening.