I branch away from my usual cryptic and self-absorbed material and try to write some interesting material.
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There are many ways to say those three words ‘I love you’. God knows how many I have experienced personally to no avail, but let us investigate the context and circumstances of this most over used adverbial participle (my grammar is circumspect…).
To be clear, chances are when one says I love you, all of these are encompassed.
With sincerity
Always, this sincerity is exaggerated due to intoxicating the effects of lust. If you ask the lover who speaks sincerely after the affair, they will declare, dejectedly, “I never loved her!”. Yet in this sorry reply there is always an unmistakable tinge of indignation. As though the lover had loved sincerely. A pity the sincerity is only exuded when it is of little use to anyone.
With intent to ensnare (ie, with strings attached)
There is a sense that in every I love you. Or even in every act of loving, there is an intent to ensnare. To draw the lovee into the lover’s ideal of the world, to make the lovee like the same things, dress and speak in the same register, meet and greet the same people, live the same kind of life, sleep in the same bed, live in the same house, and have the same children. You might conclude that love is, therefore, not for the individualist among us! And that is entirely right. A base thought might be that only those who feel an inherent deficiency (or in the case of the man, an extra appendage *wink*) feel the need to find another. If we were perfect as ourselves, then why love for? But of course, the deficiency may also be emotional, and hence, we must ensnare the lover when we say — I Love You — because they must not know that we are weak in any respect! It is war!
With Confidence
Often said by those who believe that saying anything confidently, no matter how unsure they are of the truth, makes the listener believe in the statement. It’s a real hoodwink this one. Few people are sure of love without the mutual commitment of the other. But this happens to be so commonly practised that it’s the oldest trick in the book. I, Love, You. Da da da. Said with clear piercing barotone lines, without a flicker in the eyes. Eyes that might turn you to stone! Yes! They love me! I am sure of it. I love them! I am sure of it. Oh what tomfoolery. Go rob a prison.
With desperation
Is there a more pitiful situation? Your lover is leaving, you are devastated. You love him/her! You love only him/her! There is nobody else in the entire world of 6 billion people like him/her! They’re almost like him/her, there are people almost identical, there are people with, admittedly, even better features than him/her. But they’re not him/her. They have not have spent the self same time they have with you. They have not even met you. They haven’t led you into some mistaken assumptions as he/she has. And so you plea and plea, you wring your heart and your sleeves.
With longing
Inevitably this is said when he lovee is not there. In my books, if you speak to somebody who is not there, you are a) under the effects of a hallucinogen in which case you should stop; or b) completely out of your mind.
With tedium
Ah, my favourite. When you no longer mean it but say it out of obligation only. Is there any greater lie? Do you really believe you won’t be crawling on the floor if they walk out the door? A testament to the human’s ability of self-denial!
The outright lie
Praise be to you, you Machiavellian! I’m unsure whether Byron said I love you to any of his many reputed lovers but if you were him you would have, because you can lie without a prick in your heart. Surely this is the highest achievement, but only if you looked them straight in the eye! You are destined for success in love, and life.
The silent I love you
You might mistake this for a lack of love. But as in a certain Sherlock Holmes novel (I think), lack says more than existence. The fact that two people need no longer say some hackneyed phrase for reassurance sake really says more about their relationship than any thing else (apart from dying for the other person but that’s an entirely different story and comes with it’s own exceptions and riders… which I shall visit another time). This is the most common of i love yous I’m sure, because people are lazy and indolent. But that change the fact that this is part of Louis Armstrong’s song ‘What a Wonderful World’. ‘They’re really saying I love you’ when they’re saying ‘How’re you’.
This saves a lot of trouble doesn’t it? Beautiful. Life is love.
–
Indeed. It’s not all bleak. If you don’t have the guts to say it. You needn’t say it. if you did you’d be buying into a really gutteral culture that requires certainty. Let me tell you there is no certainty, even with those words said, your incessant mind will ask, how much? In what quality? They’re endless. We must learn to cherish the inherent ambiguity in it all; and to notice the love and care that others show in their motions, in their speech, in their bodies. Only that secret love, that dwells beneath the surface. Only that, and that only, is not worth mentioning. (Please forgive my style and my cynicism. This is just a bit of fun)
Have you ever thought of writing a play called Honour? You’d probably do a better job than the original playwright.
My play would be called disgrace and would be about how an amateur critique really pissed off the establishment and was driven to his death by the mafia hired secretly by the establishment.