What is Love?

Now a days a lot of people say they are in love with someone. I ask them how they know and they never have an answer for me. I'll tell you what I think love is, it is when you think about someone all the time and you want them to be happy, by doing large or small things for them. Your heart races every time you talk to them, be it online or in person. You can not imagine being without them or even remember a time before you met them, they were always there. I dream of the day that I will feel this emotion, sometimes I do feel this but I just squash it down because I know the person I like is taken. I have said I liked a lot of people in the past but I truly don't know what to do. I have liked this person since ninth grade, but I was to afraid to approach her with my feelings until recently. We were on the swim team and marching band together  and those were the happiest times of my life. I would secretly glance at her all the time, when I was sure no one was looking. One day in ninth grade at a football game, a friend named Travis told me to go up to her and ask her out, apparently I was caught. I tried to work up the courage, but it failed me when I most needed it. He then swooped in and started dating her before I could try again. I wasn't mad, she seemed happy, so I wasn't mad. At least I thought I wasn't, now that I think back on it, I was really upset. Yet once again, I did nothing. Am I doomed to forever be alone? She probably right now is reading this and is thinking "oh will that's so sweet, but I have a boyfriend".