"Love~ is it a real thing?"
In the general sense, it is a word with a definition and it's a topic that's been visited by multiple sources of media.
"Can we be in love?"
In the general sense, anything is possible.
"And if it is does it strengthen us or make us weaker?"
In the general sense, it seems to do both, neither, or one of them, varying from person to person and experience to experience.
"Should we express love with words or through actions"
In the general sense, words are actions of a lower volume.
Beyond this it's personal bias really. At least critiquing the individual instead of it across a spectrum of "we" would give more room for subjective answers.
"And if it is does it strengthen us or make us weaker?"
Both, in the experiences I've had being in a relationships makes me push my limits when it comes to challenges even farther than before. I'm no longer bearing my own weight, I need to be prepared and ready to carry hers when the time comes.
I know during some of the hardest times in my training I used the woman I stalked as motivation. It really did make me push myself farther than what I could've done alone but that behavior isn't exactly healthy. In the end it makes you weaker, you're tied to one person and at the whim of their affection just as they are to yours. Your priorities change leaving your goals sometimes to be sidetracked while adding an additional and potentially crippling vulnerability to your life. Some people never recover from a broken relationship and some are never freed from a successful one. It demolishes ambition with the exception of a few cases.
Love itself becomes a blind and it's honestly one of the future fates I fear the most. I try to take the philosophic approach that I use by default with all things when it comes to romance "Everything in Moderation". Flings, fwbs and short term relationships fill the need for compassion while not slowing me down.
Also your way of never getting hurt and staying aloof. I understand that kind of coping. Giving up control allowing someone else to hold the reins and guide me is foreign for me. i am learning though the beauty of surrender.
I dare you to try it. Let a good woman hold you up when you need it.
It took me 15 years to understand love to the point I understand it now.
My first encounter with "love": I had my first boyfriend when I was 14 and he was 19 and he told me he loves me after 2 weeks of our relationship. Immediately after that, I didn't give a fuck about him anymore. I thought he was too weak because he was trying to make me stay by saying that to me. I couldn't feel a thing towards him and so I left.
My second encounter with "love" was two years later when another boyfriend told me the same thing. But this time, I tried to stay with him longer, but I couldn't force myself to feel something for him, so I left him.
My third encounter with "love" was a year later with my third boyfriend. He told me he loves me after a month and it took me another two months to say it back. To this day, I'm not sure what I felt the whole time - we were together for 4 years. But he was a good guy and it was nice to be with someone.
My other relationships were almost the same. But after a years of "fake" relationships, I realized, that love is not just something you say because you're feeling good. It's something you say when you really do care about your partner. You want your partner to feel good, to make his life easier and to be with him because you want both of you to feel... good. And this thing is really really rare.
Love is something that one must work at , to gain the true rewards. Sacrifice and mutual
commitment to common goals, and actually taking time to listen and appreciate the other person for what they are, not what they can give you. Sacrifice and compromise are not easy things to achieve. I know for myself that there have been times when Im spent or tired and pissed off and its the last thing I feel like, but the rewards and enjoyment of loyal, lasting love based on reality and the effort one makes are returned many times over in many ways.
I used to confuse obsession with love. Partly because I didnt give enough of myself to fully appreciate what true intimacy was like, and also because at times I was fucking selfish and concerned more with myself and my own wants than anyone elses. Im glad as Ive gotten older that I can appreciate things differently. Love is certainly subjective, and a myriad things to different people, but the world would be a pretty miserable fucking place without it, in my opinion.
Edit: If Id grown the fuck up earlier and paid more attention to learning the lessons and knowing myself better without distorted views, I wouldn't have robbed myself of a lot of love and caring offered to me by those closest.
Take a leaf and dont rip yourselves off :-D