These People Don't Know What Love Is

In "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love", two couples spend a of day drinking and trying to decipher the meaning of love. It was a bit hard to identify an overall big moment, and instead I found what could best be called mini moment's. One such moment was at the beginning when Nick, "....encircled the broad wrist with my fingers, and I held her (129)." This sentence came right after Terri told everyone about her abusive ex-husband and insisted that her ex-husband lover her. It stood out to me because it felt that the way Nick decided to hold her wrist, instead of her hand was a way of showing an act of possession, more then being a sweet gesture. Another instance of the relationship that can be seen between Nick and Laura is how he comment's on how," In addition to being in love, we like each other and enjoy one another's company. She's easy to be with" (131). Why he said this confused me greatly because in order to be truly in love, you should already like the person and enjoy their company or else what would be the point of being with that person? It almost  made the relationship between them seem shallow. As for Terri and Mel, I could not decide if they still had their so called love between them or not due to the dialogue becoming confusing as more alcohol was consumed. Mel out of all of them seemed to think that he knew the most about love and yet with his failed marriage and his desire for his ex- wife to be killed by bee's I feel that perhaps he knew not one bit more then the other's.The fact that Mel was a heart surgeon but didn't know how the heart or love worked was also greatly ironic. Terri on the other hand only knew love in form of abuse, and it was sad to read as she said,"...Sure,sometimes he may have acted crazy. Okay. But he loved me. In his own way maybe, but he loved me. There was love there, Mel. Don't say there wasn't" (129). From what can be seen by this, it seem's that she in no way, despite having a better relationship with Mel, has come to terms emotionally with what she was put through. Alcohol of course was one of the biggest part's of the story and it served to keep the conversation going and loosening tongues as in Mel's case.

Questions: What are the varying other opinion's on the relationships between these two couples? What was the significance of the ending?