At this past week’s “How Do We Love?” seminar, I got to discuss with my fellow Rose Scholars our personal definitions of three little words with a BIG social and emotional impact.
“I love you.”
At the center of the issue is the fact that “love”, although one of the most commonly used words, is one of the most infrequently recognized. How many times do we say, “I’d love to” or “I love…[random object or activity]”? The answer is….a lot. And yet there is an implicit difference in meaning depending upon what we are referring to. Romantic love, for example, feels and looks very different from how we may feel about, say, pizza, despite our identical word choice in describing each. With such a discrepancy of meanings, we have no choice but to fall back on a very watered-down definition of the word, amounting to something along the lines of “to have a very strong preference for something”. In my personal opinion, I find this definition to be very shallow and it fails to capture what some people may call the “magic of falling in love”. Quite frankly, I’d be insulted if that’s all my significant other meant when he told me he loved me. I mean…wow, thanks. I prefer you too.
I know we’re never going to eradicate this loose definition from our vocabularies, but at the same time I think we need to clarify the dictionary meaning such that the emotion behind a heart-felt “I love you” can be maintained. My personal favorite definition right now is that to love is to will the good of another. I’ve been spoon-fed that definition all my life, and for good reason. I think it’s more than sufficient to describe our human relationships. When we love love someone (i.e. romantic love), we care about them, and if we care about them, we want what’s best for them. The reverse is true as well. If we want what’s best for someone, we care about them, and, therefore, it’s not a huge jump to say we love them. Under this definition we can accurately describe how we feel, not only about our significant others, but also about our friends and family. There are no romantic undertones in this definition, and yet it still does a much better job capturing the emotions felt in such a relationship than the weak definition we have now.
Lmk whatcha think!