I love you is a lie. Not all the time, but certainly some of the time. It is a phrase that has tremendous meaning to most girls, but for some more less scrupulous men, it is merely insider language to keep a relationship running.
This insider language is everywhere though. Twitter users have it. Explaining the social media significance to my mother of IJustine re-tweeting a tweet of mine is completely pointless and meaningless to her. These terms and expressions represent specialized concepts that only the insider culture gets. In fact, it is only meaningful too the insider culture. So what is the tie in you may be wondering? Glad you asked:
Short phrases like “I love you” carry tremendous meaning and weight. It is a quick and easy way to sum up feelings that should not be quick or easy to describe. It has become a sloppy and meaningless way of describing how you feel.
This is why you need to remove “I love you” from your vocabulary. Because your better than that. Because you love deeper than that. Removing its usage helps weed out those who use it only to deceive and avoid the painful work of going separate ways.
Saying I love you makes couples creatively, spiritually, and emotionally, lazy. When you truly love someone; that you would die for them, that you would and could live anywhere in the world and so long as you had the other person…makes compressing that powerful sensation of love and compassion into a three word blurb, meaningless in my humble opinion.
I liken it to compressing your favorite CD into a variety of mp3 files so you can listen to it on your Ipod. Yes, the music is still their, but the quality has degraded ever so slightly. It is just not quite the same.
Remember being told “I love you” by someone for the first time? I remember feeling like that way for someone the first time. Your heart beats a little quicker, your a bit more aware. Tension, anticipation, nervousness. This is what “I love you” is like AT FIRST. But over time it becomes an overused, played out song. Like that one track you listen to a hundred times because you found it so profound. What once had tememdous impact on you, that you never thought you would get sick of or tired of listening to, now finds itself meaningless. So goes that way of “I love you” over time.
Are you in a relationship? Do this instead: Don’t just say you love them, show you love them by your actions. Then, instead of using a phrase that has become stagnant, one that everyone uses, tell them something unique about your feelings for them. Like:
- “I never get tired of seeing you smile”
- “I could leave everything behind because your all that matters to me”
- “I appreciate how you took the time to listen to me”
Touching right? Imagine being told some of the above by someone you love? It would mean so much more to them than the simple and generic “I love you babe”. The reason is because we take each other for granted. We just assume those around us KNOW how we feel about them. What we like about them. But I am willing to bet they don’t. Why would they? We never tell them. We just say I love you and go on our merry way thinking everything is fine.
Try removing “I love you” from your vocabulary and see what happens. You might be surprised in a good way at the results.
best,
-David
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