Last semester I attended the seminar “How do we love?” and thought that it would be interesting to see if and how my views had changed when discussing love. I don’t think they have changed that much but it was interesting, as usual, to hear what others had to say about love.

We talked about what love is to all of us and jotted words and phrases down on the board. Some words that resonated with me were selflessness and selfishness, as well as family. Selflessness in love makes sense to me because you do everything you can for the person you love, or for the people you love. I never really question why I do some things for certain people, I just do them because I love them. Additionally love can be very selfish. If we love someone, especially romantically, we want them to ourselves. Family is love, the only kind I’ve ever known and the most rudimentary unit of love, other than loving ourselves. Family is what teaches love in my opinion and gives us our first taste of love. Perhaps family is what teaches us to love ourselves in the first place…

The poems Dr. Alvarez read to us were thought provoking and very deep and descriptive. In his own written work, he talks about the way love is captured through the five senses and I really enjoyed this imagery. Love is not just felt, but rather seen, heard, tasted and even smelled. He talked about loving a hometown and loving a person and even loving yourself in order to love more. I find his research very fascinating and would love to learn more about how he intends to map out love for queers.

Overall, I enjoyed this talk. I still think love is a form of weakness and after hearing the poems, my thought is reinforced. Love makes us vulnerable, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t love.