Saying “I Love You” More Often.
Generally I don’t think people say ‘I love you’ often enough to their loved ones, family and friends. Some people wait all year until Valentine’s Day to say ‘I love you’, which I think is a social problem ( but not an economic problem if you own a florist!) …..I wondered how our world might change if everyone started telling their significant others those three little (but big) words more often????
So I decided two years ago that my permanent New Year’s resolution would be exactly that! I decided to tell everyone that I cared about those three little words: “I love you”.
And yes I got some very strange looks! So then sometimes I cheated a little and said only two little words: “Love you”!
I even once text “LU”! But that just looked ridiculous!
At first, I felt a little awkward saying ‘I love you’ to anyone else other than someone super close to me. Usually we reserve the ‘I love you’s’ for family members, close friends, partners, husbands, and wives. To make matters worse, the English language has but one phrase to indicate the sentiment of love. So we have to say the same ‘I love you’ to our parents, to our children, to our friends at work, and to our favourite teachers and so on!!!! Awkward!
The step down from the ‘I love you’ phrase is the rather cold and empty ‘I like you”. But sometimes when saying ‘I love you’ is too much, saying ‘I like you’ is not quite strong enough, and saying ‘I like like you’ borders on the ridiculous again. (Even though I will quietly admit to saying the double like like phrase too!)
Basically my plan is:
- To widen the love circle – tell more of my friends, especially the ones that I’ve never told before.
- To strengthen the love circle, – tell my family, friends, and loved ones that had heard it before, more often.
- Encourage the receiver to do the same for the people in their lives that they care about.
The outcomes of my little social experiment were definitely worth my effort, and worth the time required to explain myself when I got an unusual look after saying “I love you” for the very first time to somebody.
The person on the receiving end would typically smile from deep within. And the smile would cover their entire face and light up their eyes. Then the warm fuzzy feeling came over me, that feeling you get when you know you’ve done something nice for someone else, and you’ve connected on some deeper level. Sometimes changing the world happens one little phrase at a time!!!!
Hey if you do speak another language other than English, and if your language has more than one word and phrase to show ‘love’ and ‘I love you’, please comment below and tell us! I’d loved to hear about them!
Love Mon xx ……. and BTW……LU!!!!!