A love match is about the strokes, not the result

A great many phrases and words are bandied about with complete abandon in our mediocre culture; and each mindless, undiscerning utterance devalues the real meaning still further. Great courage, sheer genius, totally unacceptable, all time great, terrific insight, London can take it, we’ve turned the corner, genuine democracy, all in this together…..each of these (and many others) have become the everyday anodyne fare of newscasters and narrators.

But perhaps the least understood and most abused phrase is something that couples have been saying to each since erectus became sapiens: I love you. (To be fair, erectus probably said it too, but it mainly involved grunts and – no doubt – the occasional affectionate club around the ear’ole.)

We’ve all been guilty of it. As a younger man, I was a hopeless romantic. I could say “I love you” to any attractive girl who so much as smiled at me. This got me into a number of beds, but also a lot of scrapes that were entirely self-inflicted. Once the longer relationships came along (as I got better at biding my time) they still wound up being ones where – at the end of every phone call, day, love-making and kiss goodbye – there would be “I Love you”.

It is, let’s face it, a bloody silly thing to say in this general sense. And it does smack of protesting far too much.  Just as CallmeDave says “Let’s be clear about this” at every PMQs and at some point in most interviews, we all somehow know that – much of the time – the words are being uttered on automatic pilot rather than out of romantic truth. I have loved four women in my 65 years, but for entirely different reasons and in completely different ways. But “I love you” as a phrase is something both too all-embracing, too easy….and too often demanded as proof of perpetual fidelity.

The decision I’ve reached – and this may well be a case of better late than never – is to take elements of the person and say “I love” in relation to those dimensions only. Not only is it more honest, with enough genuine use of variety it is far more likely to be listened to – as opposed to merely heard.

In the case of my first wife, I could’ve been entirely genuine in saying (for example) “I love the way you lark about”, “I love your commitment to a task”, “I love the forthright responses” or even “I love your hair”. With the first significant woman in my life, I could’ve offered the love verb in relation to her dark skin, her sense of humour, her grace, and her tenderness. With my first girlfriend, maybe “I love your rebellion” and “I love your smile”. I looked her up again forty-five years later (it was the Friends Reunited era) and she said “I still love your eyes”. She’s no longer with us – but I wish she was, because half a century later I still loved her smile too.

This may seem like a naff parallel, but I’m going to use it anyway: I can say “I love Wimbledon”, although there are many dimensions of the tournament that truly get up my nose. But more accurately, I can assert “I love Murray’s ability to get back up again” and “I love John McEnroe’s commentary” or “I loved the rally that turned the women’s semi-final”.

As soon as you specify what you “love”, it stops being counterfeit and starts to have depth. I recently consorted with one lady, and never said “I love the way you laugh at the ridiculous” or “I love the way you take on a challenge”. I should’ve done. What I actually said was, “Part of me is halfway towards falling in love with you”. This was a profoundly dumb-assed thing to say: it scared her, and confused me.

There is a lady sort of half in my life at the minute, and I absolutely love her wisdom, her joie de vivre, her caring social nature, her open heart and inquisitive mind. To say I love her (or ever could) would be infantile. However, to say those other things to her is real for me. She loves my writing and wit. But whether I’d like it if she turned out to be a flake, or she’d like it when I fart in bed….well, that’s another matter. And those things may never be investigated.

I will say one thing in closing. Anyone who brings personal growth into my life I will love purely for that – male or female. What I feel today is that this lady doesn’t so much make me think – she makes me think again. I cannot bear the idea of anything being ‘settled’: it’s like comfort eating, in that it’s there to assuage the fear of reality with the sensory pleasure of a food-lined comfort zone.

Stop moving, learning and re-evaluating, and you’re in the fast track for God’s waiting room. Retain a lust for life’s lessons, and you will live a life more  fulfilling – for a much longer time.

Sleep tight. Schlaf gut. Dormez bien. κοιμηθείτε καλά.