Everyone says I love you

Love is the only satisfying and meaningful purpose and answer to life. It gives us the answer to most of our questions.

What do I know about love?

Never enough really. I know all the amount of times I've felt loved rather than the "I love yous". I know love is in understanding eyes, and it's in the things we share. Love is in an honest kiss or a hug. It's in friendship, acceptance, care and intense sentiments. Love for some is gone, for some it's unrequited and for others it's simply yet to be found. I know that everything I have read about love, to be true and real and maybe even out there. Charles Dickens wrote "a loving heart is the truest wisdom.” What a beautiful thought.  I'm amazed on how the past ages were the era of such spontaneous and powerful feelings on the heart’s affection. Many writers and poets have made love the center of their art, for them it was the answer. From Shakespeare, to Dostoevsky, on how they wonderfully described love to us and how they deeply felt it. Maybe the true description of love starts from what Shakespeare said "I would not wish any companion in the world, but you" and from there it goes into depth. I know you must be thinking, in this generation that kind of loyalty and love has vanished, where people are so quick to choose a good time over a good thing. However, I'm personally fond to think that romantic, and real love still does exist and I truly find myself thinking about it, quite often. Love unfortunately in this generation has been taken into a misconception for others and seen as a game, for some. I do believe it's a very infantile way to view something so much bigger. Love is loving because you have love, and it's what you have inside to nurture others and yourself. I love you means I wouldn't hurt you like I would never want you to hurt me. Saying I love you means I will love you and stand by you, even in your worst of times, without trading that for the first fun thing that comes in the way. I love you means I know your deepest secrets and won't judge you, or won't break your trust for how you confided in me. Love is also imperfect, but worth it until it's loving and being loved at the fullest with passion. Don't say I love you to just anyone at any time. Don't make such powerful and important statements become welded with the other superficialities of everyday life. Life is full of mediocre things, don't make love one of them.

"Treat others as how you would want them to treat you."

How many people in your life can you say that make you feel  special and purely loved?

People that don't base things on what they can get from you in a speculative way, people that don't diminish you, but see you for the beautiful qualities you have. How many people push you to be a better person? It could be a friend, a lover, a parent. If you are lucky to have these kinds of people. Don't just say "i love you" show them, show them how infinitely thankful you are to have them and how much you love them.

I must admit I'm a hopeless romantic and I'm never changing that. I do believe that if you are lucky enough, once in your lifetime you come across few people that will become your soulmate. Some may call such thought too cheesy, even so believe that, if you haven't yet met them, you will come across those people in which you can confide your deepest secret and deeply trust in them, those ones in which you see their radiant true colours. Maybe that's what love is, finding the one person you don't want to hide your vulnerability, but show it.  I hope you are able to go through life with that, and if you haven't encountered it yet, I hope you get it. I hope you live for the loving emotions because it makes you realise that's what life revolves around.

But why do people fall in love? Why are some forms of love so lasting and others so fleeting? Psychologists have given such amazing theories, to explain love. Love is a basic human emotion, but understanding how and why it happens is not that easy, even for psychologists. Psychologist Zick Rubin proposed that romantic love is made up of three things: attachment, caring, intimacy. He believed that sometimes we experience a great amount of appreciation and admiration for others. We enjoy spending time with that person and want to be around him or her, but this doesn't qualify as love. Rubin referred to this as liking.

Love, on the other hand, is much deeper, more intense, and includes a strong desire for physical intimacy and contact. People who are "in like" enjoy each other's company, while those who are "in love" care as much about the other person's needs as they do their own.​

We ask for love without knowing, that love simply happens and with time. But before it happens we need to learn to love ourselves as well. I have learned that self love is so important for you to acknowledge your value. I find so many people I love, and even myself settling for less than what we deserve. Isn't it unsettling seeing someone you love not get what they truly deserve? But maybe the evolution of knowing our worth is recognising what we don't want and seeing what love isn't really about, through lessons. I have learned my lessons and that when it comes to love, never settle for less. And unless it's passionate, honest, calming love, it's a waste of time.

I personally want a lot to love and maybe be ravished from it, why not? You only live once. So all I can do is hope for a deeply loved tomorrow.

How early attachments impact us in adult romantic relationships.

“Infantile love follows the principle: "I love because I am loved." 

Mature love follows the principle: "I am loved because I love." 

Immature love says: "I love you because I need you." 

Mature love says: "I need you because I love you.” 

― Erich Fromm, The Art of Loving

How you approach closeness, intimacy, dating, and romance is from early bonding and attachments we develop with our parents, when we are young, and that plays an important fact in how we form romantic relationships in our future life. Our early attachment figures can affect who we choose to be our sexual or romantic partners in the future. As the amazing psychotherapist Esther Perel has been known to say: "Tell me how you were loved and I will tell you how you will love."

Attachment, defined by John Bowlby, is the theory as a “deep and enduring emotional bond that connects one person to another across time.”

According to attachment theory, we each have our own preferred “attachment style,” which is the result of childhood, how our mothers bonding connection had an impact on us when we were young, and what we learnt about independence, dependence, receiving and giving love, support and affection. 

Those who have a secure attachment, will tend to find relationship intimacy, commitment, and connection a whole lot easier, safe and more straightforward than others. These lucky ones learnt early on, thanks to parenting that was good enough.

There are those with insecure anxious attachment styles usually had unreliable parents. Supportive and available one minute and unavailable the next, they never internalised enough security to go out in the world feeling really solid in themselves.

People who form a type of insecure attachment known as dismissing-avoidant may be uncomfortable with how close they get to their partners, physically and emotionally, and in an effort to detach from intimacy with their partners, they may engage in alcohol, drugs or other addictions. For those with insecure-disorganised attachment styles, life is even more confusing, parents were so unreliable and abusive, the child was at times frightened by the person who should have been taking care of them, and so it’s all incredibly heartbreaking and confusing. Love is learnt in their childhood and confused with abuse, neglect or severe abandonment.

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.” - Martin Luther King

More knowledge I open myself to about love, the more it can bring me pain too. The news of people I have encountered near me and the news of the people far away are what break my heart the most. The images of so much hatred around the world. I always wonder what could be the remedy for that.

The image of the 22 year old Stephen Clark killed in his grandmother's backyard by a U.S. police officer, they believed he was holding a gun. They shot him 20 times and he only had his phone in his hands. The image of Sarah Hegazi that raised a rainbow flag at a concert in Cairo, an action that proudly praised the LBTQ+ community in which she was a part of. Unfortunately, her price was to be assaulted and tortured. Before she took her life on date 14 June 2020 her last words were “The sky is sweeter than the earth. And I want the sky, not the earth”

I could go on infinitely and sadly on the wounds of our world, but I think it is our responsibility to consciously remember all these people that have tremendously suffered with an open heart and try to help how we can to prevent more suffering of others. It is only if you keep your heart open you can then, touch other hearts, and be a better person everyday and make a good impact on the terrible things that happen around the world. 

Well, that's all I've got figured out for now