According to Buddhists, life is suffering and attachment (clinging and cravings) is at the very root of suffering.

Note here that having expectations – of others or of life itself – could also be considered craving and therefore a form of attachment. In this case you are craving a certain outcome (and due to your attachment to that outcome you will suffer when the outcome is not what you expected).

In today’s world, love is often mistaken for romantic love. True love is different to romantic love. Love that is full of intense feelings, chemistry, even light-headedness may be wonderful, but these are the same kind of intense feelings that can flip the other way, into hate. Did you know that the dopamine response for love and hate is exactly the same in both cases? In most cases, romantic love isn’t loving at all. It’s an attachment. I’m not saying that it is ‘wrong’, that attachment is ‘wrong’ but just that we should see it for what it is, something to be a little wary of and something which at its most intense could hit us hard when it wanes or goes the other way.

Also, how can it be (true) love if it has the propensity to switch between love and hate all within the space of one day?

It can’t be. It’s lust, a craving.

True love has to include some form of detachment.

Genuinely loving another person is making that person feel free.

Anything else is not really love.

Healthy detachment means that we do care, but at the same time we aren’t really too bothered (or at least work on not being too bothered) when the outcomes we’re faced with don’t match our preferences.