What Is Love?

 

‘I don’t understand,’ she says, 

‘the meaning of the word.

It’s bandied about so carelessly, 

with so many different meanings.

I know several light workers

who claim to be loving, but 

they don’t show it in their actions

nor even in some of their talk.’ 

I suggest she call it affection.

Or friendship. Or caring for

another’s wellbeing. Or simply

being happy in another’s company.

‘A warm feeling,’ I offer. No,

on reflection, none of that works

for her. (She admits to knowing how

affection feels, but finds it limited.)

Seems it’s romantic love specifically 

which she doubts – doubts its reality,

its existence. ‘Again, you want it 

to be just one thing,’ I tell her. 

‘What if there are various kinds, even 

of that?’ I list in my mind the types 

I’ve known, while she continues

to question if all can be valid. 

There’s the sad and the happy, I think.

But it’s still love, no matter the end.

In fact, it doesn’t end, even if we part. 

Love, if true, is always … or for my life. 

Are some romantic loves more passionate, 

some less? Ah, if romantic at all, passion

happens, unless its nature has changed. 

‘It’s all very subjective!’ I admit. 

She quotes Erich Fromm, who opines

‘Love is not primarily … towards

one object…  Because one does not see 

that love is an activity, a power of the soul,

one believes that all that is necessary

is to find the right object.’ (So we’re back to 

love in general.) She signs her email: ‘How-

ever you wish to interpret this, Heapsa love.’

This was an actual discussion, though edited and to some extent fictionalised for poetic reasons. It happened to take place in synchronicity with Magaly's prompt 'Love Is Love' for Friday Writings #164  at Poets and Storytellers United this week, discussing whether there is only one kind of romantic love or several.