If HIV/AIDS and Sex are the new reluctant partners, then Love and Sex must be the old Siamese twins, in spite of all modern effort to separate them. So, following a May of Sex, we dedicate the mid-summer month of June to Love, love, and more love...

In the 1960s, British painter Francis Bacon (1909-1992) surprises a burglar and invites him to share his bed. The burglar, a working class man named George Dyer, 30 years Bacon's junior, accepts. Bacon finds Dyer's amorality and innocence attractive, introducing him to his Soho pals. In their sex life, Dyer dominates, Bacon is the masochist. Dyer's bouts with depression, his drinking and pill popping, and his satanic nightmares strain the relationship, as does his pain with Bacon's casual infidelities. Bacon paints, talks with wit, and, as Dyer spins out of control, begins to find him tiresome. Could Bacon care less? Starring Derek Jacobi, Daniel Craig.

We gush at someone with admiration when he is seen in the arm of a gorgeous hunk, and sneer at another with a frumpy partner and declare: "Surely he could do better.."

We wanted to do well at school so we wouldn't go home empty handed, and risk injury to score the goal, all for the sake a lousy trophy. Now, as grown-ups, we search for eye-candy boyfriends (never mind if he is an airhead) just so all our friends can go gaga over our trophy conquest.

What is it about "trophy" that make us all act against our better judgement? Trophy wives, trophy husbands, trophy job, trophy anything.. Are we so vain? Is a "trophy" a necessity, or is it just for public consumption? If so, do we sell them on after display?

"I love you, but I am not in love with you". This is fast becoming the cliché get-out line when you wish to dump someone without offending him ( you think!). Do you know the difference between the two? Do you even know what they mean at all?

I bet you don't. The fact is, most of us don't know what love means. Most people falls in love with the idea of being in love, not with the person. Little wonder that no sooner have you thought you had found love, you have lost it again.

So, what is love? Does it always entail sex or should it be a precursor to sex? Does pure love transcend sex? if so, how is it different from friendship? And while we are at it, why can't you love your friend?

A lovelorn lives in hope, a loveless lives in despair, and a lovesick lives in living hell, so the saying goes.

If you don't know what exactly love is, you should know what "lovesick" is . Everyone who has been in love, barring the very lucky few, should have experienced being lovesick - the sickness that strikes you when you fall out of love (read break-up).

You can't sit, can't stand, can't focus on your work, all because the phone no longer rings. You can't eat well because your mind tells you that you are not hungry, and you can't sleep well because your night is spent speculating if he misses you, if you will get back together, and what if this whole break-up never happened..