Well this was a little something I have been pondering over for a really long time. Thought I would blog about the same but everytime I decided to pen my thoughts (or rather type them out here), some stupid project/assignment submission kept getting into the way. Now that the 1st semester is finally behind me, I finally have some time to put this post together.
General norm... you do not say you love your friend. You say you like your friend. You will say "I love my friends" in general but will never say "I love ...." as in you will never take a specific name. I wonder why. Why the double standards? You can say "I love my mom", "I love my sister", "I love Tommy (your dog)" but why can't anyone ever bring himself to say "I love ABC", ABC being your best friend. I mean is that person not as important to you as any of the others. Does he/she not deserve the same treatment as the rest? Why is the word always associated with a romantic angle whenever it is used in conjunction with a name.... Just something embedded in people's heads?
There have been so many occasions when I have seen people judiciously steering clear of the word. Even if they accidentally use the word "love" the disclaimer "as a friend" is soon to follow. And when I witness this exchange more often than not I don't know whether to laugh or cry. Should I blame society for this distinction? Or the sheer narrow mindedness of people?
Society has anyways provided a means by which even by using the word "love" we can distinguish between the romantic aspect and the non romantic aspect. For the romantic aspect you can always use the phrase "in love" and English anyways provides a pretty vast set of words which can be used to express this. Yet if the word "love" is used for a friend, it gets misinterpreted. So one has to resort to saying "I like ABC" even thought he knows that deep down he has strong feelings of affection and trust for that person, enough to qualify him for the other word. So when you say you love some family member or someone close, aren't you pretty much talking about a similar level of affection and trust? Then why are friends not entitled to a similar treatment?
I personally feel that "like" is perhaps too mild a word to capture the real depth of feelings associated with the word "love". Can you think of saying "I like my mom"? Hell no. Agreed that all friends do not reach that depth but as and when if one friend does, he is still never promoted to the "love" level.
I know I cannot change the way the world thinks and nor do I intend to. Though I do wish that someday's people's outlook would change and they will learn to accept their true feelings for their close friends.
