Imagine someone attractive suddenly walks up to you, interrupts your designated article-reading special time, locks eyes with you, and says, “Hey…I love you.”
Now imagine that same attractive person approaches you, once again interrupting your precious super awesome article-reading-ultra-time, but this time says, “Hey…I love your pants.”
Aside from anger over being interrupted, these two situations cause two very different reactions. If an attractive person compliments your pants, it’s likely that you’re going to feel pretty happy about it. If a stranger walks up to you and confesses their love for you, you’re either going to run away from the crazy person or (if you’re a crazy person too) embrace your newfound soulmate.
“Love” is a problematic word because it means so many things to so many people. Some use it to describe the Togos sandwich that they only ate half of, and others only use it once a year on their child’s birthday. Some people think it defines a lifestyle, and others think it’s a weakness. Whether you hate it, like it, or love it, the word “love” is very important to everyone.
The issue is that everyone has their own definition of “love”. This is true of every word in every language. Sure, we all get taught the same dictionary definitions in elementary school, but things change when we get older. When we’re in preschool, all we think about the word “pig” is a pink oval with a curly tail that goes “oink”. And for a while, that’s it. Then, we grow up a bit, and we see someone on TV call a guy a “pig”. And this is confusing. Young you looks closely at the television screen, staring at the guy, but you don’t see any tail, and you’re pretty sure that you’ve never heard that character say “oink”. Well, maybe he has, depending on the show. But the point is that suddenly a simple word has gotten a little more complicated. Besides just being a smelly pink animal, a “pig” could also mean a smelly pink man.
The first time you hear the word “love” is (hopefully) from your parents. And for a while that’s what love is: the food and shelter that you receive from the big people whose faces kinda look like yours. From there it gets more complicated. Maybe your parents are there to give you an idea of a loving relationship, but maybe they’re divorced, or maybe you never had any parents at all. Television tells us that “love” means a million different things, from the ultimate emotional expression to an excuse to get into someone’s pants. The eHarmony commercials tell me that there is love out there for everyone, and yet Catfish: The Show tells me that love is a lie told by a creepy 40 year old. Snow White promised me one true love, but The Bachelorette is telling me that I have some options.
Love is one of the most defining aspects of lives, and yet because of how much importance we dump on it, we all create our own idea of what it is. Sure, this can lead to some awkward moments (like saying “love” on a first date), but it can also lead to something beautiful (like saying “love” on the first date and you’re both into it). Our definition of love is forged by our experiences, and when we find a person who has lived in a way that their meaning of love matches our own, we resonate. That’s all it takes to find a person to share love with. Suddenly, the word feels a lot less complicated.
