I ♥ U

3 words.
8 letters.
A world of meaning.
The beginning.
The end.

A lot of things in the real world confuse me (this is the real origin of my dizzydami  pseudonym, btw). Lately, I have been thinking about the big deal everyone makes about saying "I love you". There's so much protocol attached, in my opinion, to something that should be one of the easiest things in the world to do...

Who says it first?
How soon can you say it?
Who can you say it to?
Should you say it back?
What if they don't say it back?
How should you act after you say it?
Like I said, protocol(s)

Yesterday, I picked a couple of random friends and told them in very simple words, I Love You. The reactions ranged from nervous, awkward acceptance to dismissal to disbelief to shock to serious conversations and grave declarations of undying love. To some, I had to explain and issue serious reassurances that I wasn't picking baby names or trying to become the next Mrs. Dude. I was simply telling the people in my life who matter to me right now, that I loved them. Plain and simple... or maybe not.

This is how I sees it:
Love is so multidimensional that none of us have been able to really define it. But for some reason it seems we have limited it to a romantic concept, a weapon between the sexes, something that determines the balance of power in a relationship. But that's bullshit (pardonnez mon français). Saying I love you cannot be that complicated. It does not make you weak, and it should not be a tool to elicit any obligations from the person you say it to. Its quite simple. Three words that tell someone that today, right now, they have a place in your heart. Whether or not it means you cannot live without them (or their famous jerk chicken recipe) or that you will catch grenades and jump in front of speeding trains for them depends on you; and expressing that in real words that they can understand is very important.

I once dated a guy who struggled for weeks to say those words. After a while I started to tally the number of times he said "I Love...." and was never able to complete the phrase. It was all so comical to me, because I said it all the time not caring whether or not he was able to force the words out of his throat. I think the fact that he was so afraid to say it even made me love him a little more (I'm weird like that). But the real tragedy was, even when he did the most horrible things that hurt me, his response to my accusing tears was "But I love you" like the words were a magic balm, a priceless gift that fixed everything, as if just saying those words was the most important thing in the world. Ironically, those were his last words to me, but that's another story.

All I'm trying to say today is, I think that if you love somebody, for any reason, you should just go ahead and tell them. Sure, some people will take it to mean you have enslaved your soul to theirs, but that's really their problem. It saddens me that people, even within very close families, find it hard to express the most basic feelings of love for one another (unless it's a funeral, of course).

Why should you wait until it's too late....?

~ P.S. I LOVE U ~