Should ‘I Love You’?
I heard someone saying that ‘I Love You’ is the most over used sentence and that he failed to understand the constant pressure to say it to his wife/partner. Maybe because Valentine’s Day is around the corner, but I have been thinking about these tired and abused three little words. From one extreme that thinks “If you’ve said it, you’ve killed it” to the other extreme who is of the opinion that “You should say it to everyone, everyday, all the time”, I have friends who span the whole broad spectrum in terms of the ‘I Love You’ usage.
If ‘I Love You’, then when?
A nanosecond is one billionth of a second. Times of this magnitude are commonly encountered in the field of telecommunications, pulsed lasers, but more importantly to calculate the right time to say ‘I Love You’ for the first time in a relationship. Having said that, the right nanosecond varies from culture to culture; for example in the Indian culture, one says it right after running into each other in a college corridor after knocking down each other’s books and sundry items, as evidenced by many a desi movie. On the other hand, American movies and sitcoms lead us to believe that the saying of ‘I Love You’ is a momentous occasion which happens midway in a relationship, after saying which the relationship takes a quantum leap into things like moving in, popping the question, marriage and other murky areas. This dear friends, is the life changing quality of saying these words at the right time, it can change your life for the better or worse.
‘I Love You’: Overuse & Side Effects
Once you have said it for the first time, it pays to understand what ‘I Love You’ is not. It is not an excuse, a threat, a stress buster, an ice breaker or a booty call. For all my married friends who think “An ‘I Love You’ a day keeps the divorce lawyers at bay”, please note that God has given every man and woman a predetermined number of effective ‘I Love You’s. Overuse will result in a multitude of disappointing side effects from indifference to downright hostility.
This phenomenon is not limited to married/committed/non-single people. Every once in a while, I come across people who are in danger of ‘I Love You’ overuse, not to one but to many people. Saying these three words is not like firing a round of bullets at a shooting ring, where with every shot you try and get closer to the target. Remember always that we live in a small world, sometimes too small for comfort. With the advent of newer and better communication technologies, the distance between two of your former ‘I Love You’ recipients is getting shorter by the minute.
Advice from the wise
When it comes to saying ‘I Love You’, I always follow the advice my mother gave me about peeing. Don’t be afraid to say it when you feel like it, forcing it when you don’t feel like it will only result in pain. On that note Happy Valentine’s Day folks!!!
