In an ideal world, anyone would love everyone equally and unconditionally. Unconditional love is loving someone freely without any conditions or expectations.
In other words, it is a deep affection and commitment to another person without caring much about the other person’s behavior, circumstances or actions. It does not matter what that person does, acts or says to you, you would still have 100 percent love for that person. Love is in the heart and is needed to be expressed. Love is expressed through words and/or actions.
The love a mother has for her child is probably the closest thing we could have to unconditional love. She cares for her child no matter the child does, says or acts. A mother would still love her child regardless of how the child turns up in life, a failure or a success.
I am not a parent though and I am not too scared or ashamed to admit that I have never really shown love without some sort of condition. At the very least, I would show love to enrich my self-image which I dare say is true for almost everyone out there. The only exception I can think of is probably Jesus and Mohammed.
Well, you could show love to a neighbor, a stranger, a beggar, etc. just by being a good person or just being of a sound moral character. For example, you could help an old lady cross the road, you could contribute towards building classrooms for your community school (or some other project), you could help out a neighbor financially, etc. however, there is always some agenda behind it. You want to be known, you want to be seen as a good person, you want something in return in the near future, etc. People do things or different reasons that I could not even comprehend. At the very least, you did it for your own self-image. You did it to feel good about yourself and that in itself is a condition.
On the matter of loving someone as a spouse/partner, it’s a no-brainer. They say you cannot choose the one you fall in love with. Regardless, you fell in love with that person because of something. Probably, you fell in love with the way the person treats you, the person’s demeanor/lifestyle, physique, character, etc. You fell in love with the person for some reason and that’s why you don’t fall in love with a vacuum. There is always a condition.
Unconditional love is the best kind of love but it doesn’t exist. Therefore, with “conditional” love, I’d entreat you to have a good enough reason to fall in love with another person. Fall in love with someone who treats you well, someone who adores you, someone who (probably) shares your morals. For the ladies, fall in love with someone who can provide for you and your children and is good to you.