P1: From my point of view Tolkien never describe what “love” is for an elf. Meaning “love” does not have to follow usual path of love that ends with marriage or what not. So roughly it could mean love for your family (bro/sis, son/daug, mom/dad) or a friend. Since we are talking about elves in general the way Tolkien wrote them in a way that acts like gods. This tells us that they, elves, have little to no emotion more precisely elves emotions cannot be compare to human’s emotions. Best way to understand it for me is like Sheldon vs. Leonard from the BBT. Everybody knows Sheldon, right right, if not look him up but to sum him up IQ over 180, lack of empathy, rude, literally knows everything, OCD, and possibly has Asperger’s/Autism. While Leonard has a similar IQ, shows empathy, sometimes not rude, and does not have OCD or Asperger’s/Autism. Now back to Sheldon and why I chose him. As said before Sheldon is not the average human he is too smart for his own good.
P2: Elves are highly intelligent which means they can control their emotions very, very well or they forgot how to be emotional. Emotions to them tend to be useless and not highly useful so they forget that emotion. For Leonard he is the human and we know how this works very irrational emotions at times. Ok, hopefully we all understood that let’s get back to “love.” Love is a general emotion but love is a loose term where it can mean many of things. As said before love can be for b/s, s/d, m/f, and friendship. Tolkien does not state what kind of love elves will follow but people just think of the general love with marriage.
P3: . Now my theory is that Legolas love was of friendship because after the war of the ring Legolas and Gimili were inseparable. They wander the world together and fought together and “died” together. So Legolas only had a crush on the fictional Tauriel but his true love was with Gimili. Or if you like ships they probably had a more immanent love (wink, wink, nudge, nudge, you know what I mean).
Sorry for the long rant hopefully all this makes sense.
PS if you are wondering about Elrond, remember Elrond is half elf. This in tells us that he has less restraint on emotions.
I would not say that because Spock was half human and had to extremely control his emotions. Elrond would be a comparison with Spock. Neither race, for both, liked them because they were not either side. Basically both races could live with each other side by side but if you mix your peas with mash potatoes war is a brewing. More like Elves = Vulcan
Sorry for the long rant hopefully all this makes sense.
PS if you are wondering about Elrond, remember Elrond is half elf. This in tells us that he has less restraint on emotions.