There are three types of “I love you” outside of romance. The first one is activated when you are not sure if you will ever see the person again, possibly ingrained in Irish people through the intergenerational and ongoing upset of migration. Going to boarding school, with my parents a 27-hour journey away, that kind of I-love-you was underpinned by fear. Just in case we never see each other again, I love you. I give them to my husband as he lifts his bag from the hallway to go to places where worse things are happening than here. Those ones mean, “Please come back”. The thread of fear in the goodbye-I-love-you carries through to when I hear my children say it. From the hob, I’ll hear a, “I’m going now, love you, bye!” and the slam of the front door. I’ll get a call with a bunch of lads messing in the background and hear, “Sorry, I’ll be late for dinner, we’re still playing in the park, love you, bye”.
The second type of “I love you” is the one that feels like someone giving you their winter jacket when you’re freezing. More than ever before, I have paid attention to this one. It is rarely deployed, and it should stay this way, or it will start to lose its effect.
My brother, 14 years my senior, sat at my kitchen table not so long ago. We discussed life. He understood, more than anyone else could, what I was telling him. He’s a man of few words, particularly in text, which are normally limited to K (okay) or Tx (thanks). Later on, he texted, “Love you”. I sat back down in the same chair with tears of reassurance and thanks (or Tx) streaming down my face as I texted back, “I love you too”. It took me back 30 years, to 6pm on a wintry Sunday night, when it was time to go back to boarding school after a weekend with my adult siblings. The Simpsons was on, sirening the countdown to the dreaded bus back to the convent. He was lying on the floor watching TV, his head propped up on a stack of books. At 13, and he 27, I was tucked under his arm, head on his chest, tears soaking through his plaid shirt. He didn’t try to fix it, he just held me. That’s what his “love you” text felt like.
There’s a good chance they won’t say it back, even if they do love you
On the phone to a friend who has come into my life in recent years, he told me about a debate in his head that could change the course of his life. To explore it together, he had to tell me about some difficult times. I knew he had been through something, but I had waited for him to be ready to tell me, if ever. “I can’t believe I’m after telling you all that,” he said, worried slightly about what I would think. I didn’t try to influence his choice. I said, for the first time, “I love you”. Neither of us needed to say much more after that. That one meant, “You are safe with me”.
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The last type of “I love you” is the best one. It is the one where you can look someone in the eye, with a giddiness crackling in your chest, and, because of the fabric of who they are, and the way that they make you feel, you can’t contain the words any more. This jubilant and pure “I love you” is reserved for people whose happiness is consequential to your happiness.
There’s a good chance they won’t say it back, even if they do love you. They’ll have no bother referring to some gas character you both know and declare that they love them, but not be able to open their throat to let those words out to you, even though they’ve shown you in so many other ways. The speaker’s tongue only needs to softly touch their teeth once to let the three syllables slip from their mouth. Don’t say it to hear it back.
If you are going to say it back, say it back. Adore is such a gorgeous word, and in French, “je t’adore” sounds much more luscious than “je t’aime”, so maybe in French, I’d take it. “I adore you,” is better than “Cool, thanks,” but it’s not “I love you”. Being mad about someone as well is taking the ring road. It’s not, “I love you”. Used in isolation, those are excellent things to say to someone. Used as a response to I love you though, they’re inadequate. “Thank you”, or “come here to me, you big eejit,” are grand options if you can’t drop the L-bomb.
[ I love being called ‘love’, although there are some exceptionsOpens in new window ]
When used too much, it can feel like being deep in a stuffy department store that you didn’t want to go into. When said casually, it is a receipt needlessly printed and binned without a glance. It needs to be used to a level that feels like walking up the road alone and finding €50 on the ground. Take it or give it with a sense of wonder, a thread of gratefulness, and keep it safe in your pocket for when it’s needed the most.
