what's it all about?

I phoned a friend. It's not just a Who wants to be a millionaire thing, it's an actual real life great thing to do when you're stuck and need support. She listened cos she's ace at that, but she's also given me food for thought.
I said I was wondering what it's all about and then answered my own question and said it's meant to be about the relationships we form, even tho we can then hurt when we lose the relationship. Now of course not everyone sees things the same way and tho she didn't challenge me as such, I picked up on a word she used and it got me thinking.
Is it (for me?) about relationships? Or is it about love? I guess I sometimes use those interchangeably but they are actually quite different.
For me, love in it's purest form probably isn't relational. Love at its best is unconditional and therefore not at all dependent on any comeback. Love can be given and then walked away from with no expectation of anything whatsoever in return. Whereas relationships are ongoing and messy and full of give and take, holding on and letting go, connecting but with some expectation that it has meaning beyond the moment. Now I get a clearer sense of why my loved ones might sometimes feel hurt when I talk of loving everyone and anyone in the moment without discrimination, hierarchy, or ongoing commitment.
Cos relationships can involve a commitment at whatever level to something future rather than Only In The Present. Love clearly exists in relationships - how else would we manage to do the giving as well as the receiving? The hanging in when the going gets tough. Is it a worthy aim, love without relationship? What would be lost? What would be gained? If we weren't attached does that mean we can love more purely, without the fear of loss, without the need for reprocity? Or if we weren't attached would we be floating free and not interdependent and where would that leave community which is so important to me? Being in relationship takes way more time and energy than "just" loving someone, and so there is much more limit to how many relationships we can develop. If we didn't have relationships there would be more time/energy for loving everyone we encounter. But it is in being in relationships that we get a better picture of how best to love someone, when they are in need of encouragement etc. So by having a history with someone, I may know that they'll find mother's day hard and proactively contact them. For example. By not having the relationships we can't usually learn, and work out how to love more deeply.
But there may also be times when showing love without having any relationship can have a bigger impact. When we have friendships we can perhaps expect a certain degree of care, that they will return our call, be there for us when we need them, say encouraging things etc. If a stranger does that it can show a love that isn't because we feel we have to, that's expected of us cos we're their friend.
The woman who remembered me for sitting beside her when she was upset was grateful because 'you didn't have to stop' and in a way she was right, I didn't know her so there was no 'compulsion'.
 I suspect it's a good thing to both love and build relationships - sometimes maybe without the latter, sometimes simultaneously. thankyou for bearing with me, this might seem like naval gazing but I'm trying to work out what makes most sense for me to be doing with my one wild and precious life. If it is about relationship building then random listening on a bench isn't going to be the way forwards for me.

Grief is clouding my thinking but these are things I may come back to somewhen.

And as is the way of things, from my initial one question I have no answers and more questions ;)