Love is different for everyone. It’s kind of like how each person perceives color differently. There are many types of love, like how there are many shades of blue or red or green. So, what defines love? It circles around being caring, respectful and showing compassion...and branches into different types of love that one person has for different people. But let’s narrow these ideas even further.
Everyone has their own perspective on this idea, feeling, thing or concept called "love." And that can range from nothing to everything. It's cliché and eclectic and notoriously famous— the world's greatest paradox that poses not a problem nor a solution but rather, a question!
In this short film, eleven unscripted young adults are questioned on one of the world's most taxing questions: What is Love?
Two other questions are also posed:
Cute things you'd do with your significant other/any relationship, and vice versa (ideas could be theoretical)?
Staples of a relationship (ideas could be theoretical)?
Below, I decided to formulate my own ideas on love, as these ideas are a complete conglomeration of opinions framed through one's personal life experiences. There are no right or wrong answers. (But watch the video!! It's way more cool and important).
To me, love is…
1. Remembering the smallest details of the other person. Remembering how they told you at the bus stop home from the city two weeks ago that they eat their cereal separate from their milk or how they really don’t like eggs unless they’re three minutes in on the pan—that is, sunny side up. Or remembering how they pick off the seaweed off their sushi, not because they can’t bear the taste, but because the seaweed is their favorite part of the roll. Whatever it may be, nothing in the world resonates more beauty than keeping all these puzzle pieces in your head, or even writing them down somewhere. You’d be surprised one day, how these puzzle pieces can be put together to compile a big picture.
2. Never believing that you have settled. In other words, never letting the relationship become mundane. Feeling the need to constantly be in that phase of “butterflies” and “stomach churns,” excited for your first date and your first kiss together. And just holding hands and talking for hours on end about German pigeons or your aunt’s third toe or how your mailman had a funky mole. I mean, whether you’re going to do laundry together in the sketchiest part of town or you’re taking a trip to the center of the ocean in breathtaking Australia, go into each adventure with the same level of excitement; an infinite amount. And always be chasing your significant other. They fell for you, for the person you were when you were trying to get them to like you, or vice versa.
3. Leaving little notes, reminding them how much you appreciate them and love them…and then actually showing it.
4. To piggyback off No. 3, life is better with surprises. They don’t even have to be grand or expensive. Make the bed in the morning when you usually don’t. Make them a breakfast in bed after they had a rough night. Get tickets to a concert for an unexpected Wednesday night out. Cook their favorite meal…and deliver it to them in person with or without a bouquet of their favorite type of flowers.
5. Creating a conglomeration of songs they love or songs you think they might like, onto a CD. Nothing expresses emotions in a brighter light more than music and prose.
6. Reading to each other.
7. Laying in the middle of a football field at the onset of midnight when the lights are on and you’re alone together, reminiscing your youth.
8. Actually going on dates, and planning them out. Possibly choosing a rendezvous where nature is embraced or where the setting is new and creative. Maybe a picnic by the lake at the arrival of sunset, garnished with Christmas lights. Or laying on a rooftop at three in the morning in a tepid summer climate, catching each passing shooting star.
9. Taking pictures. Capturing the moment. Pictures are a person’s most valuable investment. You can’t remember everything in life so pictures are there to help retrieve your memories. So take lots of them. Document everything in pictures, prose, video or artwork.
10. Eating together. Whether it be microwave popcorn from Wal-Mart or elegant French cuisine where it costs thirty dollars just for a bowl of soup, food is the essential source of communion.
11. Being able to break down to your significant other. And being able to talk and talk for hours about anything and everything while you lose track of time. Whether the matter is small or large, talk talk talk. Be comfortable crying, screaming and laughing together.
12. Spoil each other. Your Mom, Your best friends. Life is too short. Buy it.
13. Being able to nerd your brains out. Everyone has a nerdy side to them! Always learn something new from someone you love, whether it be a new quirky hobby or a new television show they think you’d like. Rant to each other about some archaic piece of prose or about some band trying to tell a story through their lyrics. Also, be able to have intellectual conversations and make educated decisions yet also being able to act like a child around someone you love. Incorporating that perfect balance. And don’t forget to put up with each other’s differences as well.
14. Realizing you can spend money on someone else like you can spend money on yourself for something you really want. Not saying money is responsible for happiness, but it's the purpose and sentiment you put into whatever you're spending your money on that makes the difference. Because their happiness is absolutely intertwined with yours.
15. Realizing that love is in fact, not infatuation. Making amends with yourself to learn that you don't need to force a relationship for happiness. The wrong person is sometimes just the wrong person, and you can't change them, or change yourself to be happy with them. Love is a process of maturation, and you're constantly learning.
So, what’s love to you?
