Watashi no Doku wrote...
You can't seem to decide on whether love is simple or complicated lol.
Reading this has made me think of something, though. What people call "intimacy" is just the desire to express things that society dictates we have to keep within ourselves. In the case of sexual intimacy, people share certain desires and aspects of their body that they normally have to hide from the world. But intimacy can also be expressed by sharing thoughts, secrets and feelings--anything people wouldn't normally share with anyone they didn't trust deeply.
I always like to think of love as a cute little houseplant. You have to give it a strong foundation (the pot and soil), a good environment for growth (plenty of warm sunlight), and enough water to grow (but give it too much or too little, and it will wither). And if you give it just the right balance and put enough time into it, it might just survive through the winter.
TL;DR: People suck. Get a puppy-dog.
If you try to "think" about love, yeah it can seem intricate, but actually going through the process of loving another person is more of an experience then a math puzzle.
Love can be compared to taking care of a house plant, but the one thing that is missing with that analogy is you cannot communicate with a plant (I know some people try music therapy and whatnot, but I'm not going to get into that; I find it silly lol).
I look at love as an experience because love has no guide book. You can't just open up the stat screen on a person and know there general background, then choose out of a few options what to say to sway there fancy (though life would be funny if it were like a dating sim).
The only thing that makes it possible to find love or find people is to be open to the idea. This means that regardless of what happens, you want to try and find friends and more. People can hurt you and make you feel like utter shit, but when you find the right people it makes those bad experiences worth it.
I know that even with all of the idiots I've dated, I have really come to appreciate my current boyfriend. He was worth all of the horrible things I had to go through. We have our ups and downs with one another and he can drive me up a wall sometimes, but we always talk things out and value one another. He also plays videogames which makes me happy (seriously most of the guys I use to date didn't! Sad times indeed).
I also think of love like this; sometimes it can hurt to care and love people, but to not know love would be worse then any experience. I love my boyfriend, my friends, my dog, my family, and the people I care for at my job. It's not easy sometimes, but I'd rather love then not love because of fear of whatever.
In the end if you want something you have to find a way to get it. Takes time and effort, but I know for myself I never gave up hope on finding people that I could like and would like me back. Doesn't mean that I wasn't pessimistic and depressed and anxious through it all, but hope can outweigh all of those negative feelings. I'm also hard headed so when I put my mind to things I get it done lol.