WORDS ABOUT LOVE

(Or the Expressions Used for the Never-to-Be-Resolved Mess Called Feelings)

The English language uses "I love you" a lot; between lovers, between family, friends etc. My language (Slovene) doesn't. Instead, we use what would translate as "I like you". "I love you" is reserved for lovers/partners exclusively, and even then it's used more rarely; it carries a lot of weight with it.

I used to think that was good. By all means, let's use different terms, let's draw a clear line.

Well. There are no clear lines, are there? Of course the love one has for their family is different from the love they have for their friends, and even more different from the live they have for their partner. But how different? In what way?

I want to focus on the basics here, so let's put the obvious characteristics of a crush aside. You know, the skyrocketing heartbeat, the daydreaming, and whatnot. Let's just talk about love, about relationships.

There are things all types of love share, be it love for family, friends, or our partner. Like the desire to spend time with them, sometimes more, sometimes less, but we look forward to seeing those who are dear to us, and we usually have fun when we're with them. We trust them, share our secrets, out burdens, our laughter. We feel bad for them if they're down. We're ready and willing to help if they need us to. We let them into our personal space and enter theirs.

What's the big difference then? The degree to which we feel those things? Is there some scale for love? If we miss a person with certain intensity, it's friendship/family love, if we miss them more, it's romantic? And where is/that point? If we want to see somebody a certain number of times per week/month, is that friendship, and then what's more is love? In how many cases can we rely on somebody to have our back? In I-don't-know-how-many cases if it's about friendship, and more often if it's family? Or is it the other way around?

Somebody forgot to write a book about that. Rating Love for Dummies. They forgot to give us a scale to measure affection, too.

I don't have answers, either. But what if love is really all the same? What if it just comes down to the ways we express it? I think family love has the clearest boundaries, but how about friendship and infatuation? We meet someone, and somehow, we decide if we want to be friends or lovers. Sometimes, there's physical attraction, sometimes there isn't. But that's physical attraction not love. So is romantic love same as friendship + physical attraction then? Or friendship + something? But at its core, it's still love, isn't it? Still the same affection?

I think his makes my head hurt... If somebody finds that book, please let me know...