What Is Love?

I hate it when language makes it harder to communicate.

Love is an emotion¹. It resides in a single mind at a time. Parents (generally) love their children, even when the children don’t feel similar feelings back. Humans often love animals or fictional entities that literally can’t love them back. And of course many adults feel love to another adult that doesn’t have the same feeling back towards them.

But in many cases you can’t simply communicate that you are having that feeling, because doing so implicitly puts obligations on the loved person. They are expected to either (A) reciprocate and therefore concede that you are now bound in a social contract of mutual support/sacrifice, or at least advancing on a escalator closing in on that, or (B) reject the other person (“that’s lovely, but I’m sorry, I don’t feel that way”) to avoid being bound/advancing in that way.

This is bullshit. This forces people who are feeling Love Feelings but that don’t want to draw someone into such a social contract to keep their feelings hidden. If somehow the fact of the emotion slips out, the other person who may have been having happy love-adjacent feelings is forced to either jump further than they’re ready for, or retreat into a much less happy position of withdrawal.

Sometimes (not uncommonly!) I am feeling happy Love Feelings and I want to convey them, but I want to say them in a way that makes it clear that:

This is an emotion I’m feeling right now. It is pleasant and I want to share that with you. I actually expect you don’t necessarily have the same feeling, and you’re just enjoying my company or cuddles or whatever, and that’s great! I am not promising dedication and resources beyond the usual that two close adults extend to each other, nor am I hinting we should advance on that track, nor do I want anything like that from you. I don’t want you to feel like you have to say anything back! This isn’t about me asking for anything, this is just me sharing a lovely emotion I’m having. I hate the feeling of hiding things from people, especially of putting on a mask of “I’m not actually feeling this way,” especially with someone I care about!

I think I’ve managed to say this successfully…. once? Maybe twice.

I wish there was a way to say this that was commonly known and accepted.

I especially wish that there was a way that people could say it to me. I’m happy to hear that I’m eliciting such feelings in people. I want to be able to say in return “I am happy for you, thank you for telling me” without feeling like I am rejecting them by not saying “I love you” in return (assuming I’m not feeling the same feeling in that moment). And I want people to have the ability to respond to my “I’m feeling love to you” statements with an “I’m happy” statement as well. It would lower the barrier to saying that in the first place.

I think the world would be a better place if we could freely tell people we are having happy love feelings without expectation or obligation. Suppressing emotions like that, the beautiful joyous emotions that make us better people, is a terrible innovation.²

1. citation needed

2. I, of course, blame monogamy-culture for this. The idea that the only legitimate expression of this emotion is to bind couples into reproductive contracts is great for forcing people into such unions. Weaponizing love like that has left us all worse off. To the point that we don’t even have the language to say certain things without a blog-post worth of explanation. :/