You and I must have played Hide and Seek very differently as a child. I had 3 siblings (2 girls, 1 was 3 years older, 1 was 5 years younger, and a boy, 18 months younger). I started playing Hide & Seek with my sister when I was 2. According to my parents, I used manipulative (not their word, but it's what I'd call it) and sneaky behaviors to find her, or to sneak back to base. For example, I'd call "Are you ready?" several times, then locate her using the sound of her voice when she replied. When I hid, I would grab little objects to throw into another area, so that when she looked there, I could beat her back to base. She was 7. I was 2.
When my little brother started playing (age 3), he wouldn't answer, and he caught on to the thrown object thing after I used it once. I preferred playing with him because he was harder to beat. Then my innumerable cousins got in on it, and it gained a much more sinister air. Being found was scary because the person who was "it" would scream or yell every time they found someone, and the person found would also scream, usually startled. Both my brother and I saw being found as the equivalent of being killed in the game. No one ever mentioned this, but I recently became interested in the idea of it, and it turns out that most of my cousins (all boys, don't know if that makes a difference, but I'm not a male) thought of it the same way. It was a game about being hunted by a monster, if the monster found you, you died, or BECAME a monster yourself.
This was in the late 70s, early 80s. I would never describe the game as we played it to be about love. It was about survival, at least it was for us.