It always startles me when a girl I do not interact with often or know very well says “love you!” to me. “You love me?” I think to myself. Often caught off guard by this bubbly, extroverted person, I say something like “you too!” hurriedly back.Â
As an English major, I tend to take words a bit too seriously. You will catch me laughing at typos, analyzing texts and overanalyzing word choice when I write and edit. But love? Love can hardly be taken too seriously.Â
In fact, I think that when these girls say they love me, they are undervaluing the seriousness of such a proclamation. I will think to myself, like a confused, heart-aching, preteen girl, “they love me? No, surely they cannot love me. … Maybe they do love me.” But what does it mean for someone to love me?
I wrinkle my nose when hearing this phrase in a mundane setting because it feels like a lie. Love is a verb. Love is unlike many other emotions that you just sit in; it is active. Love can overwhelm you like many other emotions. You can feel that you are in the state of being in love, just like how you can feel overjoyed or disgusted or terrified or silly. But feeling love requires a relationship with someone or something. Facilitated through a relationship, love is expressed in active ways.Â
So, for me, saying “I love you” casually feels like a lie. And one of the few things I dislike more than improper wording is lying. I sometimes say that you cannot spell truth without my name in it. Jokes aside, truth is one of the most important things to me in life. I suppose that is another reason why I love finding the right words to express myself so much. Using them and meaning them is being truthful.Â
When a girl I see once in a blue moon, who hardly replies to my texts, tells me she loves me, I find it hard to imagine what love looks like to her. Do not get me wrong, I know full well that love can be manifested in many different ways. Just as one person’s run is another person’s sprint, and yet another’s walk, love manifests differently in each of one’s relationships. For example, I have regularly-scheduled times to talk to some friends, and with others, I have an unspoken agreement that we are bad at texting each other regularly, so we just wait until we see each other in person to communicate. Nonetheless, each loving relationship is active, as they cannot help but inspire me to express my love in some way. But when love is not agreed upon, when love is a word used with no action taken, that is not really love.Â
Love is necessarily reciprocal, too. You can love chocolate cake because it gives you a sugar rush, reminds you of childhood or just because it tastes great. You can love a song because it puts into words a strong feeling you want to express or because when you hear it, your body just needs to move along with the beat. And you can love others not just because you want to express a strong emotion for someone else, but because, in turn, they reflect love back at you. Love is always a balancing act, and if you listen to a song too many times or eat too much chocolate cake or find yourself always giving to someone who does not reciprocate, that cannot be real love.
“Falling in love” is an apt phrase because it so accurately describes what happens. In my limited experiences, romantically and with friends, realizing you love this person is like being knocked off your feet. All of a sudden, you realize that this person is highly important to you and you cannot imagine what life would be like without them. It is confusing because it happens without your notice, and then you cannot help but think about how lucky you are to have this person in your life. Your heart leaps to spend time with them, and each bit of love shared in small and large ways between you feeds this feeling within each of you.
Falling out of love is oddly not dissimilar. Perhaps it is better described as a fading or a sliding, but other times, realizing that the love has ended is abrupt. In my limited experience, when you have loved someone for some time, the ways that you feed into that love become routine, and doing these things can feel more like something you just do out of a sense of duty rather than out of a passionate desire to express yourself.Â
When a once-loving relationship becomes just another practiced habit, you lose an essential thing that makes love what it is: passion. Passion can be felt in small moments, but when you are in love, your heart never really stops feeling the joy and gratitude of being with this person. You wake up excited for the “good morning” text, even if it is the same exact words every day. You smile to see your friends in the morning or at class, even if you see them in the same places every week. Because love does not always have to feel like the intense passion of a good first kiss or the overwhelming relief of feeling deeply seen by a friend in a difficult moment. But love should always bring the joy that comes from caring for someone passionately, even in the quieter ways.
Love is a verb. So go express that love, and express it honestly, because love is a precious thing, too.