I've been dating my gf for about a month now, and we've been ending all our conversations with "I love you <3" be it online or the phone. Now, in most of my what I call "potential" relationships I would obsess about the person the ENTIRE day, and would wait anxiously for them to come online, and when they do I would wait as long as I could for them to message me and if they didn't I'd ALWAYS be the first to do it. Now that I'm in an actual relationship, I don't think about her as much as I did with all my previous crushes, I have a large amount of care and compassion for her, she comes to me every night in my dreams (except last night for some reason) and she ALWAYS messages me first. At first I questioned if this really was "love" and if I truly do "love" her, I don't know what love is really, but I think it might be something to do with the feelings we have for one another. Maybe love is obsession for a person, minus the compulsive need to know where they are all the time and once you're done work you can't wait to be with them in the night :).