I often complain about people who throw around the word love, I even refuse to say the word myself unless I'm absolutely certain of it, even if someone says it to me first. Call me crazy, but when I looked up the exact definition of love in the dictionary I was dumbfounded by what I found: (a) unselfish loyal and benevolent concern for the good of another; (b) strong affection for another arising out of kinship or personal ties. Huh. That's it? That's all love means?? I thought about this for awhile, actually, for the last two days, trying to piece together my definition of love with the definition given to me by the dictionary and I must say that if this is truely the meaning of love who am I to argue?
The first type of love to me is of course, family love, the way in which you love your parents, your siblings, your nieces and nephews, etc. The first kind of love we know, which we are born into, which we have little control over. The kind of love that can fight, argue, hurt, forgive, and still always you can be certain of it existing.
The second kind of love is friend love, how we grow to love people other than members of our family, which usually also happens at an early age. Some friends become like members of our family, we love them in the same way, with the same affection; unconditionally. These first two types of love are those that are thourougly examined in psychology, the ones they give you right off in 101 along with Pavlov and Freud and all the other simple psychological definitions and theories.
The final type of love however is harder to define. We know this because romantic love is something we all struggle to understand. We listen to songs about it, read books about it, feel the need to find it, watch specials on the Discovery channel designed around it, and at the end of all the overload we still all question what it is romantic love really means. Is it that feeling we get when we're around that special someone? The butterflies and the sweaty palms, and the rush of blood to places that make us tingle? No, because science would define this feeling as lust, and while love can grow out of lust, they are not one in the same. So how do you truly know if you love someone? This has caused me stress and panic in a way that seems irrevocable in my mind. Because every time I watch movies like "The Notebook," "The Time Traveler's Wife," or "Twilight", or I see another episode of "Sex and the City" I find myself questioning every romantic love I have ever thought I felt. Because really, after a relationship ends, you have to let go of the love, it is not unconditional, it is not all forgiving, and that's what makes it the scariest kind of love.
So after my definition search, and my Discovery channel specials, and my movie watching and song listening to, I realized that maybe it's me who has mixed up the meaning of romantic love with something more, something unattainable, something that only exists in books and movies and make believe. Call me crazy but of all the four letter words to throw out there, I'm the most cautious of the L one.
The first type of love to me is of course, family love, the way in which you love your parents, your siblings, your nieces and nephews, etc. The first kind of love we know, which we are born into, which we have little control over. The kind of love that can fight, argue, hurt, forgive, and still always you can be certain of it existing.
The second kind of love is friend love, how we grow to love people other than members of our family, which usually also happens at an early age. Some friends become like members of our family, we love them in the same way, with the same affection; unconditionally. These first two types of love are those that are thourougly examined in psychology, the ones they give you right off in 101 along with Pavlov and Freud and all the other simple psychological definitions and theories.
The final type of love however is harder to define. We know this because romantic love is something we all struggle to understand. We listen to songs about it, read books about it, feel the need to find it, watch specials on the Discovery channel designed around it, and at the end of all the overload we still all question what it is romantic love really means. Is it that feeling we get when we're around that special someone? The butterflies and the sweaty palms, and the rush of blood to places that make us tingle? No, because science would define this feeling as lust, and while love can grow out of lust, they are not one in the same. So how do you truly know if you love someone? This has caused me stress and panic in a way that seems irrevocable in my mind. Because every time I watch movies like "The Notebook," "The Time Traveler's Wife," or "Twilight", or I see another episode of "Sex and the City" I find myself questioning every romantic love I have ever thought I felt. Because really, after a relationship ends, you have to let go of the love, it is not unconditional, it is not all forgiving, and that's what makes it the scariest kind of love.
So after my definition search, and my Discovery channel specials, and my movie watching and song listening to, I realized that maybe it's me who has mixed up the meaning of romantic love with something more, something unattainable, something that only exists in books and movies and make believe. Call me crazy but of all the four letter words to throw out there, I'm the most cautious of the L one.
i LOVE LOVE LOVE yoU!!! discovery channel specials!? i wanna watch them!! let's sit around in our jammies with a giant vat of chocolate and watch 'em!
ReplyDeleteheh, Stefania, I'm in :p
ReplyDeleteWe need more words which mean love, for all those different types.