Many at times, I have wondered- if some force out in the universe banished the words “I love you,” how would you feel loved? To test this theory out, I tried out a social experiment back in school. The aim of my experiment was to deliberately annoy three people who could get easily irritated at me, just to see whether their lack of saying ‘I love you’ would affect the ways I felt loved by them. That obviously happened to be my father, my sister and my basketball coach. Each always having something to get irritated about. It began with me doing something blatantly wrong, which would leave them with no option but to get mad, and in each scenario it differed.
With my dad, I was oddly courageous. It started with me telling him I lost my phone and resulted in 7 minutes and 23 seconds of “What is wrong with you?” as well as “You’re an adult now, how can you be this irresponsible?”. Later I shifted my target towards my sister, for whom my sole existence boils her blood. With her, I would like to say I did the most dangerous thing a sibling could: I wore her top. The age-old arguments of how I can’t wear her clothes, should wear mine instead and a “violation of right to personal property” led me to realise that I had successfully annoyed her too. Lastly, and I really wish it was the least, the scariest, petrifying, most blood-curling subject for this experiment: my basketball coach. There are people who would say that skydivers have an insane risk-taking ability. However, at that moment, I would have begged to differ. As I stood there with my hands shaking and my head sweating, planning on what I could do to anger this man, the idea hit me. Miss an open layup during a match. Check.
An irritated father worried about having to buy his irresponsible daughter a new phone. An even more annoyed sister, angry at the fact as to why the concept of sharing ever existed and a raging basketball coach, who after training his student for seven years, witnessed her forget basics. I waited to see the results of this experiment. They were all angry at those moments, furious even, which is obviously something that was a given. The real experiment was what was going to happen after: if they cared, they would say something right? But it was like nothing ever happened. Did they forget? Did they not bother? I was so confused. I was at the dining table eating and my dad offered me an orange and asked me if I found them sweet. They really are, I told him. But you’re supposed to be angry at me, is all I kept thinking. I just nodded my head yes in confusion and we moved on. My sister then entered my room to put away some laundry. Why had she not screamed at me about her top, I questioned. But she gave me a playful whack on my arm and left. Okay, It’s alright we had coach. There’s no way he’s going to stay silent. And yes, he didn’t stay silent, he was still the grumpy angry man who was as strict as ever. But that’s how he always was. Why wasn’t anything changing?
The next day, I opened the door to my refrigerator, and I saw a basket filled with oranges. Odd. That’s all I remember thinking. Days later, I played a basketball match, which we ended up losing. My coach sat next to me after he finished yelling and patted my back. We sat in silence. A week later, my sister was leaving for college. After dropping her at the airport we came back and I walked back into the room and found it. Her top. The one I borrowed. “Keep it, you thief!” it said on a note that was placed on top of it. That’s when it clicked. They all had said the phrase “I love you” to me without having to use literal words. Dad said it with the oranges that I casually agreed to being sweet. My sister, with her clothes, that she would protect over me any day. And my coach, who’ll never actually tell me I played well, screams at me when I’m the worst but sits in silence after every bad game and pats my head. Turns out, my experiment showed me love right in the middle of all the chaos I created.