Love: ???

love/lʌv/n. profound and caring attraction towards someone.

Not sure why the dude didn't just look it up in the dictionary.

I've been playing through The Ballad of Gay Tony again, and seeing as the plot revolves around the poor financial situation of a nightclub manager, the game has its share of club music (some of which I actually like, despite my usual disdain). Quite a few of the tracks mention love, which got me thinking about Haddaway's question.

Calling it 'Haddaway's question' makes it sound more official than it should be, like it's up there with the Monty Hall problem and the Ken Burns effect. Hmmm...

Anyway, it did get me thinking about love, what it means to me and other people, that kind of thing. The songs I mention speak of love like it's nothing, as if you fall in love with someone every time you hit the fucking dance floor. That's retarded. But these are pop songs—I can't expect any linguistic merit.

Personally, the mention of 'love' is of a far greater danger than that of 'shit', 'fuck' or 'cunt' ever will be. As a matter of fact, 'love' is by far my least employed common four letter word, at least when you compare it to how often other people use it. I don't use it unless I mean it, and that ain't often. Romantically, I don't know if I've ever really 'loved' someone. I've been very strongly attracted to girls before, sure, but is that love? Could be, I guess. The only love I can really confirm, if any, is that for my girlfriend when we were going out. I definitely loved her, more than anything. The shit I went through when we split assures me of that—I wouldn't have been so down for so long had I not lost that which I loved. But did I love her before we started dating? I definitely had serious, heartfelt feelings when the relationship started, but they got stronger when we started going out. Did it cross over the threshold at that point? Or had it already done so? I dunno. Perhaps that growth in feelings was the difference between loving her and being in love with her. To be honest, I never thought about it that way; I just fucking wanted to be with her more than anything else in the world; I wasn't caught up in a clusterfuck of semantics. Having said that, though, I regret never telling her I loved her. I can't remember ever telling her. That's kinda lame :P The one time I'm damn sure I'm in love and I fail to mention it verbally. Oh well, next time.

That's the thing for me: it's how we talk about love. I guess having written the paragraph above, I can come to the conclusion that for me, personally, romantic love is having what I would otherwise call 'serious' or 'heartfelt' attraction to a girl. Thing is, even though I've had that feeling before, several times, I have never felt it appropriate to go up to the girl in question and tell her I love her. To me, it just seems like a lot to dump on someone if I get across that I ain't kiddin', that I love this woman, especially if they don't love me back (which I've always felt to be more likely than not :P). It just seems a little intense. If I was going to ask a girl on a date, the word 'love' would not turn up in the final draft of the written proposal I'd be using to rehearse :P If I got the impression the feelings were reciprocated, perhaps I would mention it, but that's unlikely. I'm horrible at admitting my feelings for girls, whether it be through asking them out or just telling them how I feel, so I'd be playing it as safe as possible if I ever did convince myself to go ahead with it.

It's not just telling them directly either; expression in other areas can also be a problem. Not only would I be keeping this information away from the woman in question, I'd also be sure as fuck not to tell anyone else I loved her either. I'd probably tell a few of my friends if I liked a girl, if I had a crush on her or something, but like hell would I be telling anyone I loved her. Think of how differently you'd react if you were told someone liked you or if you were told someone loved you—no matter what your definition of 'like' and 'love' is in this context, 'love' is almost certainly stronger than 'like', so it'd have a lot more impact. In writing, however, I'd probably be inclined to go the other way and express my love as strongly as possible. The girl I kinda like at uni at the moment (my feelings for her are all over the place, definitely not love :P) writes what seem to be love poems, or at least poetry that deals with how the subject feels for someone. It's beautiful to listen to. I wish I loved someone so much that I had to pour my heart and soul into a written work.

That's my biggest gripe with my life at the moment: I'm nowhere near love at the moment. I really want to feel for someone like that again—it's been nearly a year now and I miss it so fucking much. I want that urge for someone that never goes away, that's so strong nothing can kill it, so powerful it makes me do crazy shit. It's the most vibrant thing—with it, I wake up everyday feeling like nothing can stop me. I want to progress towards it and have it again. Knowing that I'll only have such feelings for a girl if I know about their personality, the only way to get anywhere here is to meet and chat with girls, so this all stems from me not getting out much. Infatuation can give a similar, less powerful feeling, but only for one or two weeks, and not even that feeling has shown itself with the girl at uni, so I'm starting to doubt that again.

Most of all, though, I want a girl to love me. I think that if a girl loved me, I'd probably love them back just knowing that—it'd be so incredible to hear such a thing that I'd be taken aback by the very truth of it. While I know I loved my ex, I don't know if she loved me. I know she at least liked me enough to date me, and I think her feelings for me were genuine, certainly; but I don't know if what she felt for me fit her definition of romantic love, whatever that might be. Just like I never said it to her, she never said it to me either. She wasn't one to be too vocal with emotional stuff, but it'd be interesting to know how she truly felt (I say this having heard from a friend of mine that she only said yes when I asked her out because she didn't want to turn me down, but at the same time, she seemed genuinely happy to be with me, especially in the initial stages, so I don't know what to make of that—I'd kill for clarification, but I know that ain't comin' :P).

Can't wait to go back to that goddamned supermarket... hopefully the fact that this random checkout chick has been on my mind for two weeks will be worth it :)