Love is a choice, not a circumstance, and unconditional love is the strongest form of it. I choose to love you even if you stop having characteristics I like. I choose to love you regardless of any good or bad qualities you have. I love you because you are, but I'll even love you after you stop being (what else is grief?).

I don't know if you can understand it until you've received it. Until two years ago, I thought "love" itself was a lie we tell children to manipulate them into doing what we want, like Santa Claus.

But then somebody loved me. Somebody saw me, heard me, knew me, understood me. He found joy in my existence, often because of his own determination to do so, not because I was making it apparent.

He just loves me because I'm me and not him. If only one of us matters in this situation, from his perspective, it's me, not him. He wills my good for my sake, not his own, and even at his own expense.

You seem to be using "love" to mean something like "like a whole lot," and maybe that's why unconditionality doesn't make sense.

Love is an act of the will, not a response to a circumstance.