Within this generation, many of the most thoughtful and emotional words and phrases have begun to lose their meaning. “I love you” is a phrase many people tend to throw out into the world, without realizing its full impact and repercussions associated with it. Love is simply just not what it used to be, and neither are the apologies we receive either. “I love you” has begun to become overused as the bandage that can hold an open wound together when the relationship begins to crumble and divide, but usually not for long. More and more people have become to just succumb to the simple phrase “I love you,” when the actions of the speaker don’t match up.

“I love you" is not just a phrase that can make everything okay again. It does not undo and do away with the tears, the bitter shrieks and heartache associated with every argument. It does not change the bitter feelings or leftover thoughts within your other’s mind; “I love you” doesn’t mean everything is settled and it’s over now. It should not be used as an escape route to evade an upcoming conflict of interest or a persuasion mechanism. You are not even obligated to say it back. You may not even truly feel that way, but society seems to shove the phrase down our throat until we cough it up every now and again.

Love is something that used to be special, a bond that we can only really see in movies today. Sure, as times change, the theory of love does too, but the word love has also seemed to change too. Once used as a strong emotion towards someone, I feel as though the word “love” is thrown out as if it came free. Love is about sacrifices, it is about pain, about eternal joy and happiness, and not something that comes so easily.

The society we live in today loves love, and just for the sole idea of it. We lust for the idea of being head over heels in love, so maybe that is why it seems to slip through our tongues so easily. Many medias exploit love in the sense that it is used as a patch-up for when the going gets tough, used as a way to have someone finally commit fully into you, and has begun to underlie lies. Lies about where they have been, who they were with among other small white lies that usually end up in heated arguments later.

We use media with a swipe of finger to find our “soulmate,” one that we match with by just being physically attracted to the pictures they hand select to put online. But they have a Facebook, so they must be real, right? They must really be interested in me for me, right? The word “love” should be used to define something or someone that you cannot live without, a thing or being that makes your life feel complete and satisfactory.

Maybe this is just my perception, but it seems to me that emotions are muted, and rather are shown through materialistic things rather than our faces. We would rather buy someone a bear over writing love letters or poems. We would rather buy someone food and leave it at their doorstep over apologizing to their face, no food in hand. This generation is constantly providing ways to cheat real emotions, and shuns the idea of feeling emotions over pretending you have none. I am not a hopeless romantic, but our society has become less romantic and more hopeless on utilizing the word with the people most endearing to our hearts.