Dictionary.com defines love as “a profoundly tender, passionate affection for another person.” However, I don’t really think you can give love a concrete definition. Maybe that is why love has been an enigma waiting to be cracked by philosophers and scholars for ages. Love is subjective, it can’t be universally defined.
For me, many things can define love. Love is being afraid of losing that person. It is the inability to comprehend your life without him or her. I think of love as waking up every morning, next to your best friend, and being eager to learn more about this person. Loving someone is not wanting to go home and tell them about your adventures, but wanting them to experience it with you.
The person you love should make you feel like you are finally home after a long vacation, according to Piper Chapman. That feeling of comfort in their presence is indescribable. Love is that constant feeling of butterflies in your stomach every time that person looks into your eyes. It’s the feeling of someone completely understanding you. Love is knowing what the person is saying even when something is left unsaid. Love bears no label. Gay, straight, bisexual, love does not discriminate. I think this is why love is one of the best feelings in the entire world, because it doesn’t matter what you look like or how many annoying habits you have. Loving someone is accepting them for exactly who they are.
I strongly believe that our generation has lost touch with being in love. Throughout this past decade, love has been misconstrued into a more cosmetic, Instagram-worthy phase that will shortly pass. It’s turned into tweets, Facebook statuses, and Snapchat stories. It’s turned into texting “goodnight, I love you,” instead of picking up the phone and listening to each other’s voices. It’s turned into the #followmeto Instagrams. It’s all becoming posed. Posed for that relationship that everyone strives for.
People are becoming more and more distant to the idea of coming over to your house, ringing the doorbell, and asking a person out to dinner. Defining a relationship has come down to whether or not you are “Facebook official.” It has become almost impossible to define a relationship. Relationships have been diluted with the ideas of “friends with benefits” and the ever-so-popular “hookup culture.” The number one question that is asked among friends and relationships is, “So, what are you guys?” and I can pretty much guarantee the answer will be, “well, it’s complicated.”
So, I’m proposing something to my generation. Let’s ring doorbells and go on first dates. Let’s give our children a good story about how their parents met, not some story about how you guys used to hookup and then you decided to make it official. And finally, let’s not update status’ and upload posed Instagrams. Let’s live for the now and stop worrying about how many likes we will get on that post. Let’s uncomplicated things, define relationships, and redefine love.
