What is love?

On a serious note:

Driving down the road today listening to some music I found myself contemplating the lyrics to the song. I won't bother boring you with all of the details but the gist of the chorus said, "What is love? Baby don't hurt me, don't hurt me no more."

Aside from the grammatical issues the song possesses I am deeply disturbed by these lyrics. What has our society come to that we automatically associate love with hurt? Why is it that before we can love someone we have to try and be sure that they will not hurt us?

I understand that the very nature of love requires that we open our hearts up to the possibility of pain and heartache. I also understand that you cannot love someone completely until you take that risk. What confounds me is the fact that love resulting in pain has become so commonplace in the world that we subconsciously perceive the two as going hand in hand.

I refuse to believe that this was what God intended when He gave us the ability to feel emotions and if I am correct then I am led to question how the human race can ever recover from this dysfunctional emotional roller coaster.

Perhaps the more disturbing question is whether or not we even want to recover?