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Volume CXXXII, Number 20 |
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Like or love? Choose wisely...
KARA OPPENHEIM
COLUMNIST
There is a specter of confusion haunting campus… You'd think at a school like Bowdoin we would be pretty smart, would have done fairly well on our SAT verbals, and could perhaps use simple words correctly. But no, in fact, there seems to be quite a bit of ambiguity around the usage of "like" and "love." Yes, yes, I know they are four-letter words, but then again, so is "beer" so clearly the character-count is not the issue. Rather, I think misuse and overuse have so tainted these two words in our minds that at this point we have no idea what anyone is saying, let alone ourselves. So this week I examine THE WAY WE USE "LIKE" AND "LOVE" and what exactly these words actually mean.
Let's start off slowly: "like." I like having fun. I like this professor. I like Zoolander. All correct usages of the word.
Aidan says, "I really like this freshman girl." This may be proper grammar, but if you know Aidan like I do, you would realize that this is incorrect. Because "like" can mean that you enjoy something, that is pleases you, or makes you happy. Aidan could be saying that he thinks this girl is nice and wants to be her purely platonic friend. However "like" can also be used to signify physical or mental attraction, some small step in the general direction of love (more on that later). And therein lies the problem.
The girl Aidan likes? He's spoken maybe 15 words to her, total. He thinks she's hot, he hasn't heard that she has a boyfriend, or that she's a raging slut, so he says without any reserve, "Dude, I'm so pissed that she thinks Dave is good-looking. I really like her." News flash: Aidan does not like this girl. He can like what she looks like, he can like her reputation, but he doesn't know her! How can he say he likes her?
For the record, you cannot like a person without knowing them. You can probably have a little crush on them from afar, but that is not to be confused with actually liking someone.
The way Carrie sees it, "There are three, maybe four people I could actually say I like right now. I mean there are probably a hundred that I think are nice, funny, cute, sexy, or some combination of those qualities. I don't necessarily like like the people I hook up with even. But when I say that I like a person in a non-friendship sense, I mean that I am attracted to him, that we get along and that I would like to go out with him."
Which leads me to the next point. You would like someone either by getting to know him or her or upon going out with them. You would probably like them for a while as you dated and got to know them even better. You would begin to learn their deep, dark secrets, let down your guard around them and trust them. You would realize that there is no one else in the world at that moment who you would rather be with-physically and psychologically. You would be at your happiest when you were with them or even at the mere thought of them. You would want to do anything for them and vice versa. You would want to be with them as much as possible; you would know they felt the same way too. This is more or less "love."
Of course, as with the word "like," "love" can be used in many ways. I love my family. I love some of my friends. I love not having class on Fridays. "Love" can be used conventionally, without confusion, to signify liking something so much that it must be described on another level. Similarly, when you like a person romantically enough that you can no longer describe it with the word "like", "love" is acceptable.
"Love is when you feel something that you can't describe. The word doesn't even begin to cover what you feel, it's just the only thing that gives any sort of indication," Audrey tries to explain.
Many people sign letters or emails "love" or say "I love you" when getting off the phone with someone who is not their boyfriend or girlfriend. This is good and normal when it is to someone who will understand how you are using it-when it's a family member or a friend with whom there is clearly (and when I say "clearly" I mean no doubt in either of your minds) no way to be misread. This is such a touchy subject that I would go so far as to say that when signing something "love" to someone who is not related to you, it might be best to stick with heterosexual friends of the same sex, homosexual friends of the opposite sex or someone you love the way you would love a relative and you know they feel the same way. That's not a rule, just a basic guideline.
Stewart gets freaked out every time Melissa, a girl he knows from home, signs her emails "love." "We don't really know each other that well and aren't even good friends. If it were just a close friend who was a girl, I wouldn't be uncomfortable, but I have the feeling she's testing me out or something. Then I feel pressured to respond with "love" which is certainly not the way I feel in any way and it just turns me off from her overall."
Poor Stew. Poor Melissa, for that matter. Maybe she just signs all her emails "love" and it doesn't mean anything. Maybe she does "like" him "that way" and is trying to get him to return the sentiment. These problems could be avoided if everyone understood what the appropriate uses of these words were. If only they'd read an article such as this one…
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