You've got butterflies in your stomach. You can't eat. You can't sleep. You can't think straight. The only thing you can think about is your honey.

Are you in love? Or are teens too young for love? Everyone has a different answer.

Some say teen "love" is really only infatuation. They say teens are too young to know who they are and what they want from a partner.

"We don't understand what love really is," says Daniel, 17, of Tennessee. "People think they're in love because of what they get out of it. Most teens are too young to realize how much is involved."

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But others say it's totally possible for teens to be in love.

Dan, 17, of Pennsylvania, has been dating his girlfriend for one-and-a-half years.

"The more I got to know her, the more I wanted to be with her and share her life," says Dan. "I felt like I wanted to be part of everything she did. I thought about her a lot. I thought about her feelings, worried about her worries, things like that."

Tabitha, 17, and Robert, 19, of New York, say they are a living example of teen love. They've been dating for two years.

"I know I love him because every part of me feels connected with him," says Tabitha. "As corny as it sounds, we complete each other. He understands me and I understand him."

"I love Tabitha," adds Robert. "I'm not in love with her. If you're in love with someone you can fall out of love. So I love her, and I know that because I care about her more than anything else. I would do anything for her."

"I believe teenagers can be in love," adds Yasmine Tucker, 14, of New York. "But I do think most teen relationships are bound to fade after time."

She's right. Few people marry their high school sweethearts. (It happens, but not often.)

So the question is: Can you be in love, even if the relationship might not last a lifetime?

Definitely.

People fall in and out of love—no matter how old they are. Teenagers are especially likely to have relationships that end because they are still growing up and figuring out who they are.

But those feelings count as love, says Jeanne Lindsay, author of Teenage Couples: Caring, Commitment and Change.

"I think teenagers have very strong feelings of love," adds Lindsay. "Love can be wanting to be with that person all the time and the feeling that the rest of the world doesn't matter."

But if you want love to last, you need to stop "falling in love" and start "growing into love," Lindsay explains.

"A long-term commitment has to go beyond ‘love' because some of those feelings might fade as time goes on," she says.

So, while love is key for a marriage or committed relationship to work, you also need other important ingredients—similar goals, values, and the ability to communicate and work out problems.

Growing into love takes time and means both people respect, trust, and care about each other's needs. When "love" happens too fast, it's more likely to fade.

That's what happened to Lizz, 16, from Pennsylvania.

She and her ex-boyfriend spent lots of time together when they first met. She thought it would last forever.

"After four or five months, it seemed like he was the only person in the world I needed," says Lizz. "I neglected other things just to be with him."

"But then we grew apart," she remembers. "We began annoying each other. Our relationship became routine and we ran out of things to say."

Even so, Lizz still believes it was love.

"I was in love once," she says. "But you need to find out who you are in high school. Sometimes that's hard if you fall in love."

That's true. Sometimes, being in love slows down the process of figuring out who you are. But other times, it can help you understand the kind of person you want to be with long-term.

And that's sure to shift as you grow, notes Wendy Creed, 15, of North Carolina. "The definition of love changes as we get older," she says.

"I'm sure most teen relationships are mistaken for love, but are really infatuation," adds Jaime, 16, from New Jersey. "But if you find your soul mate at the age of five and grow up as friends and then marry later on, that has to mean something, doesn't it?"

It sure does. How's this for a happy ending?

Israel, 78, and Julia, 74, have been together for almost 59 years. Julia was 16 and Israel was 19 when they first met at a party in 1941. They dated for three years before they got married on October 7, 1944.

They're still in love.

"We've never separated," says Julia. "We've lived our whole lives together. We've worked together, shopped together, and we go out everywhere together. We are so united now that when one hurts, so does the other."

"To preserve love, you have to know one another. You have to communicate and respect each other. You have to give love in order to receive."

Additional reporting by Contributors Lindsey Armstrong, of Media, PA; Matthew Cuneo, of New Canaan, CT; Gina Hampton, of Clarksville, TN; Pauline Hemmingway, of NYC; and Sarah Starbuck, of Franklinville, NC.