Everyone around me is in love.

 

Or "in like," at the very least.

 

I don't know why it is that I'm so cynical, but when I hear young new couples telling each other "I love you," I react with much skepticism.

 

I don't know why I have so little faith in "love."

 

It's not so much the emotion of love. It's the words that I have no faith in.

 

It's easy to say "I love you" and mean something else, like "I'm infatuated with you" or "I lust for you" or even "I really admire you." It's easy to blurt out those three fatal words that will change your life forever in the heat of the moment.

 

I've seen enough people and couples claiming that they love each other and then eventually (and oftentimes even rather quickly) breaking up. I find it ridiculous.

 

Don't say "I love you" unless you know you mean it. Unless you know it deep, deep down inside--and not in your groin, and not even in the searing, heady feeling in your heart.

 

 

 

It's funny how it works out for some people.

 

My parents met during Christmas. Two weeks later, they were a couple. By May, they were married. And they've been together for thirty-seven years, and still going strong. They still hold hands when they walk together, and they still go out on dates.

 

Whereas I know a couple who was together for seven years before marriage, and after a year of marriage, they called it quits.

 

How does it work out for some people?

 

How is it that my parents knew that they loved each other the moment they met?

 

How is it that some couples believe themselves to be in love for the longest time, only to find out that they were blinded by one thing or another?

 

When do you know that you love a person?

 

When do you know that it's the right time to say it?

 

 

 

I have no faith in the word "love."

 

But I do have faith in love.