What is love?

It occurs to me that love means different things depending on what age you are. In particular what it means to a youngster is not what it means to an oldie.

A youngster may never have been in love, and may not even know what it feels like. They may confuse love with all sorts of other feelings. Have they fallen in love or is it something more prosaic? Is it just a crush, an obsession, fondness, friendship, or simply lust? Asking other people may not help because it's such a personal experience and impossible to explain.

There are plenty of examples of youngsters who thought they were in love, rushed into marriage, and then a short time later realised it wasn't love at all and had to divorce.

An oldie like me however knows exactly what love is because I've been in love with Jenny for 43 years and the feeling is well established. I have no problem telling love from other similar feelings. When I fell for Jenny it was the first time I had been in love so it only gradually dawned on me that that's what it was (I didn't really love my parents, I appreciated everything they did for me but that was it).

Is it love if the feeling isn't reciprocated? That's something I'm not sure of even at my advanced age. I thought I was in love with a bookshop workmate but she never reciprocated so was that love or just a one-sided crush? And what about all those people who say they "love" a public figure - a show-biz celebrity or one of the Royals - even if they've never even met the person? How can that be any more than devotion or admiration?

What is love? It's complicated....

Crush resistant

Can seventy somethings have crushes? Or are we much too old and world-weary for such romantic nonsense? Have we become immune from such over-the-top responses to other people?

The jury seems to be out. Some people say, yes of course oldies can have crushes. We haven't become so stony-hearted and emotionally tepid that such reactions are no longer possible.

But others maintain that oldies are much too savvy for such flights of fancy, much too level-headed. We see people exactly as they are and not through rose-tinted spectacles.

I was never a crush-prone individual, so I can't really say one way or the other. I think crushes have to involve idealising the other person, and I was never one for idealising people. I can only recall two serious crushes in my lifetime, and the second one was extremely fleeting.

The first was a server at a London restaurant I used to lunch at every day - The Stockpot near Trafalgar Square. In my late twenties at the time, I was smitten by her distinctive way of walking and her enormous self-confidence. I couldn't stop thinking about her. For months on end I kept telling myself I should ask her out but somehow never had the nerve.

The second was a woman who was interested in buying our previous house, when I was 62. I can't begin to explain my extraordinary reaction. There was something about her that totally threw me. I can only describe it as electrifying. She turned me to jelly so completely I could barely maintain a conversation.

However, that crush lasted about ten minutes because I never saw her again. It wasn't so much a crush as a helpless emotional meltdown.

But some people swear they've had constant crushes throughout their lives, even into their sixties and seventies. Can that really be true?

Come flirt with me

I was never very good at flirting, and never very good at sussing that I was being flirted with. Someone would have to flirt really blatantly for me to notice it.

Mind you, at my advanced age it's not often that anyone flirts with me, and I can't even remember the last time anyone did. Probably around the time the Spice Girls were in nappies.

Of course there may have been secret admirers who were too shy to flirt with me. They may have been nursing an unrequited crush they couldn't bring themselves to divulge. Sure, and there goes a flying pig.

It was a different story in my twenties. Quite a few women flirted with me so boldly I could hardly miss it. If I didn't fancy them, it was sometimes hard to fend them off.

Personally I think flirting is good clean fun, as long as it's just that and not a serious attempt to steal someone's mate. And as long as the flirtee is enjoying it and isn't feeling uncomfortable and invaded. But some people totally refuse to flirt on the grounds that it's immoral and dangerous.

It's embarrassing though to watch seedy, unattractive middle-aged men compulsively flirting with women who probably find them repulsive. Have they any idea how ridiculous they look? Presumably not or they wouldn't be doing it.

It's also embarrassing to watch people flirting simply to prove their physical attractiveness and desirability, which they're permanently unsure of. The desperate need for reassurance is sad.

But life would be dull without flirting. It adds a bit of spice to the everyday routine. So what the hell, come flirt with me....

Caught in the crush

I may be the grand old age of 67, but I still get crushes on people from time to time. Not as much as when I was younger, but they still happen.

Of course I'll never go to bed with them because (a) I'm happily married with no wish for extra-marital adventures; (b) they're usually a lot younger and wouldn't give me the time of day; (c) it would all get far too complicated. So it's never anything more than an entertaining secret fantasy.

I don't have any crushes on anyone right now, but I was very taken by one particular woman at the office block I work in. I looked forward to seeing her and chatting to her, and she probably wasn't aware that I saw her any differently from her workmates. After some months she moved to the States and rapidly faded from my mind.

I've written before about my huge crush on Elena (not her real name), a woman I worked with once in a bookshop when I was still single. Clearly she didn't have any special feelings towards me so absolutely nothing happened, but I would follow her every movement and utterance with heightened attention. I was obsessed with her for years until she also moved on and I never saw her again.

Long ago I had a passionate crush on a waitress at my lunch-time restaurant (that was when the working day still included a full lunch-hour). She had an incredibly sexy way of walking that always had me riveted. But as far as she knew, I was just the thin guy who ordered the omelette and chips and gave her a handsome tip. That time I moved on rather than her.

I've never actually dreamt about my crushes, except in Elena's case. It's usually strictly a daytime thing. And I would never flirt or stalk or do anything inappropriate. It's all in my mind and that's where it stays. Then again, did other people ever have crushes on me, I wonder? Was I ever crush-inducing material? If so, I never suspected and I shall never know.