I had a friend recently ask me the question, “when do you know you’re in love?”
A question like that, I’m not sure I’m used to thinking about anymore. It’s not that I think the answer is exactly obvious, but that, by this age, I figure most of my friends already know the answer well enough for themselves, and so I found myself thinking about that old timeless question, trying to see what best to say about a subject that has been attempted so many times over.
What I started to think was, “forget about the word ‘love.’” As was my general philisophical training, and subsequent habbit of thought, I like to try to break words down, to define them and, where possible, get rid of them entirely, so that a discussion doesn’t become circular or convoluted by connotations and misinterpretations. And I really can’t think of a word, a label, any more loaded with subjectvity and misinterpretation than ‘love.’
The trouble with the word ‘love’ is that it means too many things to too many people, and yet it is forgiven in language to stand for something we all ought to know.
As it stands, the word ‘love’ just barely succeeds as a reference between two people who use it for each other. When I say, “I love you,” to my girlfriend I don’t refer to some abstract feeling or, even, really to some wholly individual feeling. Really, I’m refering to our relationship, to my commitment to it and to her, and to all the little quips and pleasures and bits of trust, etc, etc, that make up our unique relation. If someone were to ask me, “how do you know you love her?” I would have to describe all kinds of things about us, how we interact, what we mean to each other, and all the rest, to feel that I’ve justified my feelings.
There’s a second point, that such a feeling as ‘love,’ is in no way static. I’m generally pretty sure that ‘joy,’ for example, is a fairly basic emotion, something I equate in myself with riding something very fast, with a big grin, maybe a rollercoaster, or maybe receiving the perfect gift, or giving the perfect gift. Lots of things can give joy, but I feel pretty comfortable that joy when I was eight at Disneyland is roughly the same emotional response and chemical reaction as I feel now on my motorcycle. But love, that’s more complex. It’s different for me each time I think about it, reflecting the difference in context. Love for my girlfriend now, though very similar, changes as our relationship changes. Then, of course, there is love over time, with different people. My first love, with my first girlfriend, was a very different love then the one I feel now.
Given all of this, my advice to her was this: Forget the word love. It’s very complicated, and very unuseful. People misuse the word when they do use it, and don’t know what to really look for when they’re hoping to find it. When people use the word, ‘love,’ what they really mean is, ‘feel a lot for.’
I love my girlfriend and what I mean is, I feel a lot for her. There might be a gut response that love is more than just feeling a lot, that it has emergent properties greater than the sum of its parts, but the trouble with that is that it is exactly trying to know those parts which, to parse them out, to understand what you have and have not in a feeling or set of feelings, which is so difficult. Would it be more accurate to say, “I feel a lot for her, so much so that it has reached this point which we call love?” Not really, it becomes circular and, again, demands that we know what that point is and what its qualifications are. So we’re back to the beginning, where it should be.
When you love someone, you really mean, you feel a lot for them. This is a much better way of thinking about it because it implies many feelings, probably many different feelings. It allows exploration: “what kinds of feelings are these, joy, lust, envy, pleasure, trust, happiness, pride, jealousy?” etc…
If I had thought this way in my first relationship, where I was so in love I was on the verge of tears, like, bi-daily, I wouldn’t have felt any less or any differently, but I would have maybe had a wiser perspective on what all I was feeling. There was lots of confusion. I was young, and so happy, but so scared, and horribly jealous, and insecure, and naieve, and lustful, just loads of emotions.
The point is to not relent to the common word, but to explore the feelings you have, your motivations, your desires. I know what love is to me but, really, I know what I have and, by conscious choice, I’ll call that love. If you want to know what love is, ask yourself, and if you still haven’t got an answer, don’t worry about it, you still have the feelings you have, and all the rest is just semantics.
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{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
This is a lovely post.. You are very clever and I feel lots for you.
This is indeed beautiful. So very apt about something that baffles us all. Love. But you put it so nicely, I should really stop typing and applaud your endeavour at understanding love. But I guess all of us, after the first relationship are a little afraid of entering the halls of love, but then when yu really start feeling a “lot” for someone, I guess that’s it then. We all just need to be happy. And if there is someone who can make us feel special and loved. That should be love….
Love.
V
Vyzz,
You are very romantic.