What is the Optimal Kind of Love?

Dear David,
I have had two love affairs recently, neither of which left me feeling possessive, (a tell tale sign of finding the one). In one affair the sex was amazing and the love strong and even. The other was a four day romance, the sex not so good, but I went into free fall, crying for days after she left to return home. But no feelings of possessiveness. What is the optimal kind of love?

Notice the above question references heterosexual love affairs but you should not be surprised. David's Gay Dish has almost fifty percent female hits and now evidently straight men, too. Here is my reply:

Dear Confused but not Quitting (Your inquiry was unsigned but this is what I'm calling you):
My own rule is that you are in love when you don't want someone else to have them (him, her, whatever). Which equates to your feeling of possessiveness. My question is whether you have ever had that feeling of possessiveness (my guess is that you have) and what happened? I believe in the grand amour and I don't really make a practice of sleeping with someone unless I feel that electrical zing-zing and "this is it," I don't think sex is a function like going to the bathroom and brushing your teeth. But you are a heterosexual man and they generally feel their manliness is being questioned if they don't stick it into whatever is offered (from the female side). I guess I wonder if you should have even had these two little flings. Definitely, if you don't mind them going away, it isn't love. And I might add, I think the more you sleep around the less likely it is that you will fall in love. And if you don't fall in love you wind up at the end of your life feeling unfulfilled. Which I think happens to most folks...


(Photo from the movie "Between Two Women" directed by Eric von Stroheim, 1937)