How Do I Love Thee?

Have you noticed how people seem to easily declare love these days? People call a radio station and end the call by declaring their love for the DJ, who then responds by declaring his or her love back to the caller. I am usually left wondering…do you really! But this has raised an interesting question in my mind: what is love? When that person tells the DJ they love them what do they really mean? I think the word ‘love’ does not mean what it did when I was young. Declaring love to someone was the ultimate show of commitment when I was growing up. If a boy declared love to a girl it would signify a turning point in the relationship. So girls lived for the moment the boy they liked declared his love for her. There was an art to it though, timing was key. He could not say is too soon and also could not wait too long if he wanted to be taken seriously. But back to the question … what do people mean whey they say they love you? I think the word ‘love’ has come to denote intense/strong/overwhelming emotions or affections experienced when in the presence of or when thinking of the other. When they say ‘I love you’ what they are usually saying is ‘what I feel for you is so intense it must be love’. Think about that for a moment.

What is usually the catalyst for a declaration of love is intense feelings in the one declaring. So love really is about the declarer! It is a statement on the emotional state of the one feeling. Which makes you wonder what has it go to do with the one being told?

Firstly, I think people declare love for the other (in the way described above) because they need to validate their own feelings. These emotions are so intense they need to be expressed. Expressing them gives the declarer a release. It makes him/her feel authentic. These feelings have to be real now that they have been expressed. Expressing these intense feelings also makes one feel entitled to the other. (A lot of people who end up stalking or obsessing over someone will claim love for that person… they love you so much they have to own you.)

Secondly, other people declare love to validate their own ‘lovability’. Have you noticed how people will use the statement ‘I love you’ as a question? They say it in the hope that the one being told will say it back. They say ‘I love you’ but what they really mean is ‘do you love me?’ This is why they get upset when they don’t get ‘I love you too’ as a response. People get upset when someone says ‘thank you’ to their declaration of love because it was meant to elicit a response that would validate the declarer.

Try this next time someone tells you they love you, ask them ‘what do you mean by that?’ or ‘how do you know you love me?’. I think people confuse ‘love’ with ‘like’. Just to clarify, by ‘like’ I mean an admiration or appreciate of someone or something. I think people believe love is just an intense like and so sometimes they say ‘I love you’ when they mean ‘I really like/admire/appreciate you’. To be fair it could be a language factor. In my language, Xhosa (and in a lot of South African languages) there is only one word for both ‘love’ and ‘like’ … uthando. It is the context which usually determines which one is being used. I like ‘like’. ‘Like’ is never confusing and is usually easy to understand. It is seldom random and will usually have a reason or objective attached to it e.g. you may like (admire) my smile or like (appreciate) my confidence.

‘Like’ elevates the other by focusing them. It is something in the other that draws you. It means you see the other and that you have taken the time to think about what you see or have observed. Love, as we use it, focuses on what YOU are feeling, like focuses on something in the other. Now before I get accused of demonising love trust me I am not. We are called to love one another and to love God. I just think we need to use the word appropriately.

So what do I think ‘love’ is? I would define genuine love is ‘a deep desire for the well-being of the other and the desire to participate or be involved in seeing it happen’.

So to me love is a huge responsibility. When you love someone you protect them, you elevate them, you set them up for success. Your desire is always for their well-being. Look at the relationship between parents and their children. Genuine love is not about how you feel, it is about how you make the other feel. It is not self-serving but rather self-sacrificing. Love is a decision, it is your intention towards the other. Love is not a feeling. The feelings are there to make it easy for you to bear the responsibility. Feelings grease the action, they help you go through the days when loving is hard or painful. The absence of feelings should never mean the absence of love. Genuine love may be difficult to practice because some people may not have experienced it themselves. Many people don’t even know how to love themselves. Many of those who claim to love themselves actually practice a form of self-worship and they think that is self-love.

Love and like do not have to coexist but it is great when they do. You do not have to love someone that you like. You also need not like someone that you love but it really helps if you do. Next time you declare your love for someone pause and think about what you really mean. If you realise you are not ready for the responsibility that comes with genuine love then rather tell them that you really really like them.

I do however wish you lots and lots of genuine love.