Subcultural engagement for the 21st Century...
Barbelith is a new kind of community (find out more)...
You can login or register.

Underground > Conversation >

Three little words

02:03 / 11.12.04

I. Love. You.

When do you say it? When have you said it? Is sincerity necessary?

I don't only say it when I'm drunk, but I'm much more likely to say it when I'm drunk. Sometimes I whisper it in Xoc's ear when he's asleep. Sometimes I surprise him by saying it out of the blue. He does the same with me. We're terribly unoriginal.

Do you do it? How? When? Why?

02:10 / 11.12.04

Mostly when drunk. Like now. After long conversations where I realise I should be saying it more. Also like now. Ganesh, you have pre-empted a thread I was ready to post.

Just after a long conversation regarding my friend's little girl and how I and my friends don't see her as much as we intend and know we should. Alcohol helps express many things which go unsaid but which should be explicitly explained. More later. Drunkeness higlights the need to say such things, but does not aid the actual expression in coherent terms.

02:11 / 11.12.04

Syncronicity is a lovely thing.

04:05 / 11.12.04

Aw. I say it to my man all the time. Whenever it pops into my head, which is often. But not routinely, like "loveyoubye."

And I say "I love you too" to my dad on the phone, if he says it first. And I sign notes or emails to my good friends "Love, Ibis." And, that, sadly, is it.

04:25 / 11.12.04

I don't say it. That's too much commitment.

06:31 / 11.12.04

I say it whenever my little lady does something that makes me feel like my heart has become a giggle, which is often.

I say it to my mum when saying good bye (something I only started doing after my nan was dying and I couldn't face seeing her, so phoned her and had an amazing chat the week before she died, and ended by telling her that I was very grateful for everything she had done - she helped raise me and my sister, looking after us during school holidays etc - and that I loved her) I say it rarely to my dad, but try to say it every once in a while.

I'm always suprised when my nephew says it to me. He is the most loving person I have ever met, even now, at 15, when he should be moping and playing the PS2, whenever I visit he stops what he is doing, gives me a hug, and when I leave tells me that he loves me.

08:28 / 11.12.04

I haven't said "I love you" in a romantic context for a long time, and I miss saying it but I miss meaning it more.

A few years ago, my mum started saying it to me every time we finished a phone conversation. She still does it now, and I still haven't quite got used to it; she normally says it just as I'm about to press the 'hang up' button, and by the time my brain's registered it I've either hung up and feel bad about it or I have to awkwardly come back on the line to return the sentiment. It almost always feels like more of a rote repetition than something that's actually heartfelt (although I know we both mean it), and I don't like saying it, really, unless there's a good reason to. I think it cheapens it to say it out of obligation.

And there is, of course, an awful obligation attached to those words. The edge of "I love you" can be used as a pretty devastating weapon when relationships have started to go south. I know I've been in a position where I've used it to force the petty victory of an "I love you too" out of someone who didn't feel comfortable about saying it at that moment, and on the flip side I've been strongarmed into choking out an "I love you too" and felt horribly used, suddenly exposed to the mechanisms of power and control implicit in "I love you".

It's also a useful indicator of drunkenness. If I've started to say "I love you" to anyone I'm with, even my closest friends, I can tell I'm probably about fifteen minutes away from being sick/falling over/being arrested etc. Cab for Elegant Mess!

Brigade du jour

13:32 / 11.12.04

I love you all. And it's only a little bit hyperbolic of me to say so.

I kind of love everyone by default until they piss me off by, for example, betraying me or killing lots of people or something. God that sounds so fucking pious, I do apologise. But it's true, really it is.

However ... I've got kind of scared of saying it recently because the last time in, ooh shall we say, a romantic context (?) the lady at the end of it basically went a bit overboard because, to cut a short story shorter, I didn't love her as much or as quickly as she loves me. Which isn't to say I committed the cardinal sin or saying 'I love you' and not meaning it. It was a different definition leading to a swift and probably irretrievable break-up. Sigh.

Under the right circumstances I think it's perfectly healthy to say 'I love you'. I often say it to my friends, usually when we're having conversations that look a lot like this thread. Like Elegant Mess I hear it from my mum at the end of almost every phonecall.

As for the sincerity issue ... well I do mean it when I say it, because I love (to a greater or lesser extent) pretty much everyone, or more accurately, everyone I know.

I suppose I bandy the phrase around too much, perhaps not valuing the concept of love as much as most people, or in the same way. Hmm.

Excellent question though, Ganesh.

00:41 / 15.12.04

"Little". "Lady."

*grits teeth*

It's very much a variable thing. I always used it very sparingly. In fact, before Xoc (I've just realised, having thought about it for the first time) I never ever told anyone I loved them. Other than family, of course.

Since Xoc, I've become a little freer with the sentiment generally. I fine myself telling close friends I love them, and signing more letters with "love". I suspect that, having identified a central receptacle of my love, I'm much more generally able to splash it around. I'm not at all sure why this should be so. At the risk of being melodramatic, perhaps Xoc breached some sort of internal dam...

01:05 / 15.12.04

Be fair, perhaps Benny was saying 'little lady' in his best John Wayne voice, while roping a calf, or something.

I say it quite a lot, and always mean it, though I don't love my friends in quite the way I love my family or sig. oth.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

02:13 / 15.12.04

while roping a calf

You don't want to know what I misread that as.

04:15 / 15.12.04

I'm very tall. She isn't. But yeah, it's more an uncertainty on my part what to refer to the woman I love as on board?

Why does it bother you so though? It's not that bad, is it?

09:13 / 15.12.04

I've got kind of scared of saying it recently because the last time in, ooh shall we say, a romantic context (?) the lady at the end of it basically went a bit overboard because, to cut a short story shorter, I didn't love her as much or as quickly as she loves me. Which isn't to say I committed the cardinal sin or saying 'I love you' and not meaning it. It was a different definition leading to a swift and probably irretrievable break-up.

That's the problem isn't it? My definition of love (in a romantic context) is very narrow - when I say it it means that I want to be with that person and that I accept him the way he is, that any arguments or problems (unless completely insurmountable) won't bring us apart, that I intend to stay with him till the bitter end. There's only one person I've said it to. I still love him and I don't think I will ever stop loving him (we split up three years ago - he dumped me a couple of months after he had told me he loved me).

From my experience most people say "I love you" when they really mean "I really fancy you" or "I think you're great". It basically means fuck all.

09:15 / 15.12.04

i say it to the mrs. maybe five, six times a day, and it's always the last thing we say to each other before sleeping. mum, sisters, dad get it at the end of a phonecall. think this comes from one of those *really profound* acid trips years ago where i was struck with the certain sense that love was the most important thing in the universe, and should be invoked often.

13:40 / 15.12.04

Traditionally, years after I should have first said them.

Now, so frequently I can't list it. We're catching up, the Boy and I.

ONLY NICE THINGS

14:04 / 15.12.04

I'm very tall. She isn't. But yeah, it's more an uncertainty on my part what to refer to the woman I love as on board?

Why does it bother you so though? It's not that bad, is it?

Yes. Yes, it is. As for what to call her when she's on board - first mate? Boatswain?

Less searchable M0rd4nt

14:21 / 15.12.04

Benny the Ball: I know you honestly didn't mean any harm and I'm sure you used the phrase tongue-in-cheekishly. However, you have made my eyes bleed.

Find. Another. Term.

Tryphena Absent

16:36 / 15.12.04

I actually assumed that you were talking about your short girlfriend. Probably because I find the term girlfriend sickening and little lady is a term that's too stupid to be taken without a pinch of salt.

I often call my... erm... actually I wonder what I should call him everytime I refer to him. I'm not 13 and that's how I relate to the word boyfriend, he really hates partner, I hate Significant Other, he's not my other half because I don't believe in soulmates, we're not married so he's not husband, but we do live together so the formality of partner or S.O. would probably be right... if we could agree. And boatswain is really too obscure.

17:38 / 15.12.04

Fucking hell! Sorry all.

Okay, we aren't married, but Mrs The Ball is a wonderful beautiful funny gorgeous fantastic woman, and I love her, and I Tell her as often as I can that I love her, because telling her that I love her makes me feel great, and hearing her say it makes me feel like my insides are melting in explosions, like I can't breath. I love her. Her name is Amy - forthwith I will refer to her as Amy, okay! Little Lady is no more, it was just writen as I too struggle to find a phrase that fits, and hate all that mockney 'the wife' 'ball n chain' nonsense.

17:43 / 15.12.04

What about calling her 'her indoors' or 'the old trout' surely these are acceptable!

Less searchable M0rd4nt

17:52 / 15.12.04

Only if she's housebound or you're fucking a fish.

17:59 / 15.12.04

I don't necessarily say those three words but I make damn sure every time I get to see my bloke that he knows it. The fact that I have bothered to travel 200 miles to see him in the first place is a fair indicator anyway.

I don't really like the words "I love you"... anything so formalised feels contrived and false. However other things, really unpleasant people-nearly-dead things put that "contrived" and "false" into perspective and it gets said.

As far as I'm concerned "I love you" should only be said with great abandon, complete and utter unconcern for the outcome and probably drunk. Very few people bother to do contrived and false while pissed, it's too much effort.