"I love you." It's a strange sentence. Why is it so awkward to say? Or is it just me?
I find it awkward saying it to even my own family and closest friends. It's also a little awkward to hear, isn't it? As children, it seems to come easier. Perhaps it's because our view of love as children is so much simpler. You're nice, you make my life good and I enjoy spending time with you. That's the child's view of love. So as long as you meet those criteria, after a short time, you can probably hear a small child saying that he or she loves you. All that the dictionary defines it as are:
1.) a profoundly tender, passionate affection for another person.
2.) a feeling of warm personal attachment or deep affection, as for a parent, child, or friend.
(Those are the top two definitions)
Our view of love seems to be more complicated though. Or is it? Forgive my backpedaling, I'm writing as I'm thinking (which is the way to blog, I think.) Is love as an adult actually more complicated than that, or just the conditions that we allow ourselves to admit that we love?
I can't think of much more to add to love than that. I mean, there is SO much more to love than that. There's selflessness for the other, there's a desire to serve and give to and live for that person with all that you have. There's being completely comfortable around that person and being able to be yourself and expect them to do the same. There's a lot to loving someone. But at the core, isn't it really just, you make my life good and I enjoy spending time with you? If those things really are true about that person, isn't there some feeling of like involved? Now, there needs to be a profound or intense degree of those things for it to be love, and not just like, but if I think of it, I love the people I love because they are amazing people who I love spending time with them and they make my life (and my self) better with their presence. I love people for who they are. If I think of someone in particular that I love, and ask myself why I love them, I start to think of all their amazing attributes and all the amazing things they've done for me in my life.
So, in the end, I don't think it's actually the word love that makes it awkward to say, I think it's the implications. Which is back to the point I was originally going to make, it's not love that's actually complicated, it's our experiences and feelings and beliefs about love that make it complicated, and then make it awkward to say or hear.
It's awkward for me to say to even my closest guy friends, "I love you buddy." Now, my friends will tell you I'm lying, because I do say it, and it seems to come quite easily, but it actually doesn't. It seems like it comes quite easy because it's not that awkward. I push past the awkwardness quite easily, actually. There's still just that little bit of awkwardness though.
I'm not lying when I say it. I'm not implying anything more than that I think they're awesome and I enjoy spending time with them and that they make my life great. They know that. They know these things, and they hear me say, "I love you," often. So they probably would wonder why I'd say I find it awkward. It simply has to do with my past with that word. Both with what has been associated with it and what hasn't.
I think this is what makes love hard to face for all of us. With the greatest affection for someone else comes the greatest risk of hurt. With the greatest affection for someone else comes the most selflessness and self-sacrificing thoughts and feelings and actions. With the greatest affection for someone else comes the most vulnerability and openness. These can be scary things. Often we've had bad experiences or experienced bad things on others' behalf on the topic of love. Sometimes we trust in our fear of these things more than the person we love, or in love itself. I think that that is where the fear of love, especially of admitting it, comes from. Once we deal with our fears and false expectations of self, others, and ultimately, love, we can move on and really allow ourselves to love and be loved, and to go forth saying and hearing in perfect confidence, "I love you."
I'm working on it. God is helping. Friends are helping. I'm working on it, are you? Would you like to?
-Matt
3 comments:
I've been forcing myself to tell people I love them, if I do. It's worthwhile, though can be uncomfortable. I've yet to notice anyone be uncomfortable but me.
Good Pudd!
It's true though, we don't generally see the discomfort in anyone else, it's because we're all so good at hiding it!
That's possible, but I think it's because we're the only ones who feel uncomfortable, most of the time. The other person feels fantastic, cause they know someone loves them.
Post a Comment