Love being not in love, to start with (3)
I believe the answer is:
nil
'love' is the definition.
(love and nil mean zero in cricket and football)
'not in love to start with' is the wordplay.
'to start with' says to take the initial letters.
The first letters of 'not in love' is 'NIL'.
'being' is the link.
(Other definitions for nil that I've seen before include "Love" , "Lacking value" , "Nothing, zero" , "Zero, no score" , "Nothing, no score" .)