Define Love!

By Kevin Gibson
April 4, 2008

I’m going to, for perhaps the first time ever, commit the ultimate writing cliché and begin a column by quoting a definition. If you don’t like it, stop reading. Asshole.

“Love (noun)

1 a (1): strong affection for another arising out of kinship or personal ties <maternal love for a child> (2): attraction based on sexual desire : affection and tenderness felt by lovers (3): affection based on admiration, benevolence, or common interests <love for his old schoolmates> b: an assurance of love <give her my love>

2: warm attachment, enthusiasm, or devotion. "

Thank you Merriam-Webster.com. That was inspiring.

Now … what the #$%& does that word really mean? I have two different friends who literally have received the “I love you” hex from someone they had started dating only a week or two before. Yep. Imagine it … two or three dates in, and this person you’ve quite likely met only recently and have perhaps gone only so far as to kiss, turns to you and announces, “I love you.”

I 100 percent FUCKING love you.

I don’t know about you, but I think I would jump up and run screaming from the room. You know, just for maximum effect. And maybe I’d knock something off a table on my way out to add drama.

But in all seriousness, hasn’t the word “love” really lost its context in a lot of ways because of the way our society goes about “dating”? I mean, in years past, the ‘L’ word was tantamount to pledging your entire life to someone, wasn’t it? Marriage naturally followed love, just like that damn song about the horse and carriage. But now? How do two people know they are talking in the same context?

Here’s a vague example of what I mean: My dog loves me. Why? Because I feed him and take care of him, I take him on walks around the neighborhood, and on a fairly regular basis I scratch his belly until he becomes a drooling lump of hairy flesh on my couch. Sure, he can’t think in terms of the concept of “love,” but whatever his instincts tell him to do for me in return, such as follow me around the house constantly, that’s his version of love. And I love him too, because he’s a fine little companion, and he’s my responsibility. (Truth is, I love him a lot more when he doesn’t pee on the kitchen floor, but you get what I mean.)

Nevertheless, my contextual definition of love is, well, a lot different from his. It really means something totally different. Just how far a distance is it from “I want to spend every second with you for the rest of my natural life” to “I would be really disappointed if you got run over by a bus”?

Enter “dating” in modern society. It’s just different than it used to be.

With American post-war euphoria (I’m talking WWII here, kids), Americans found a new meaning for the word “happiness,” largely because all the energy and resources we previously spent on fighting Nazis and building fighter planes and battleships suddenly were spent on grilling out with the neighbors and building Frigidaires that could make their own ice.

Dating changes along with the American Dream, oh yes it does. Like most people, I was raised to believe I would grow up, get married at the ripe old age of 21 or so, get a house, have 2.5 kids, and live happily-the-fuck-ever-after. And I bought that bullshit, I actually bought it. Hell, my parents bought it because they lived it, and they were happy with their lives, so they passed it on to me. Why wouldn’t they?

Popular culture drilled this concept into our heads too. I mean, if you saw a family like the one on “Leave it to Beaver” now, you’d report them to the authorities just for being goddamn creepy. Even the Beatles, without whom I would not be the music geek I am today, are partly responsible. Sure, now we know they were singing songs in order to get laid, but when you hear lyrics over and over like “Love, love me do/You know I love you/I’ll always be true/So please love me do,” you start to believe that crap. The inherent message is: Get yourself a mate, and love will make it all OK. Forever.

Two divorces later, and I’m on to this scam.

Man, life in America is different now. Men and women are independent, competing in the workforce, so roles are a lot less defined than in the days of June and Ward Cleaver. We’re all about finding instant gratification, and if something isn’t making us happy in the now, we’re looking for the next thing that will. That’s society. That’s us.

So when you tell your significant other “I love you,” do they know what you mean? Have you discussed it at length? Sure, you can talk in generalities and probably get close, but I tell you what – if anyone ever says those three words to me again in a romantic context (and if they read this Brain Fart, they probably won’t), I’m going to ask them to fucking DEFINE it.

Forget Merriam-Webster.com or Wikipedia.com, I want to hear your definition of this oh-so-potent four-letter word. (Hell, the ‘e’ is silent, so that letter shouldn’t even count.) And if you start talking about picket fences and flowers and weddings … well, don’t be surprised if I jump up and run out of the room screaming.

You know, just for effect.

Love me do at kgramone@aol.com. Or don’t. That’s OK too.