The general wisdom is that you can never tell someone you love them too many times. And I subscribed to that philosophy for years until I got a boyfriend who also bought into it–in the extreme. Dude must have told me he loved me 95 times a day, to the point it became irritating. Obnoxious. Kind of stalker-ish and desperate, if you want to know the truth. I used to tell him that, while I appreciated the sentiment, when I heard it with such (annoying) frequency, it lost its specialness. In one ear and out the other, apparently. It became like eating carrot cake, which I normally enjoy, but this was about 4 slices an hour, 24 hours a day, 7 freakin’ days a week.
It got to the point where I’d hear “I lo…” and I’d think, “whatever.” Then one day, after a series of events that made me lose all respect for him, it suddenly occurred to me that maybe the reason I didn’t like to hear him say that he loved me was that deep down I didn’t love him. What’s more, I realized he didn’t know what love was. He thought it was all rooms full of roses and women who wear lace and big picture hats covered in flowers, and homemade valentines delivered with a soundtrack of violins. He didn’t love me, because he didn’t know how. And that was the beginning of the end.
Now when I think of him, I kind of feel sorry for the guy. I hope he finds someone who is so love starved that she is willing to be force fed and will beg for more, kind of like one of those geese with a foie gras destiny.
Meanwhile, my philosophy has changed. Now I think that you can never make someone feel too loved. But don’t always rely on words. Take action, even when things aren’t pretty. Because talk is cheap.
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