I love ‘love’. Don’t deny it. No matter how cynical you are, you love it too. Infact you thrive on love; the feeling you get when you’re with your one-year old boyfriend and you get ‘butterflies’, not to mention the time lag between you and your significant other get together contemplating whether it’s time to say those three words and then the story gets deeper. So when it gets deeper, we start depending on promises that rely on the premise of a ‘happily ever after’ story, a solid commitment and of course…exclusivity.

So automatically, we start to measure love. If he hasn’t found the courage to put his bad-boy status on the line and say I love you…it is quickly assumed that perhaps he doesn’t, if he doesn’t bring you flowers and box of chocolates and a heavier gift wrapped bag that contains the real gift on valentines’ day…he doesn’t love you. Or on your birthday he doesn’t get you the Vivienne Westwood bag you’ve been sending both subtle and obvious hints about.
Obviously, if he spends a good chunk of his cash on you; chances are you mean a lot to him but we place a huge emphasis on symbols of love so we consider what people do to interpret the intensity of their love. And the reason we do this is not far-fetched: we know how we feel about them but don’t know what they feel about us so we look out for what they do.
Problem with love is…it is an emotion. Emotions are dependent on words and actions to express feelings. So we rely on words to convey the emotion or use symbols in their place. How many times in a day he calls to check on you or a dozen roses and champagne and expensive gifts are all pretty nice however it doesn’t prove he’s in love with you. He might as well be doing all those right things to cover up something wrong he’s done and spending massively on you would be a nice way or getting rid of his guilt. And it doesn’t help that there’s no crystal ball to inform you of his thought process or why he did what he did..he might as well want to spend to feed his large ego and ofcourse he knows your friends will oooh and ahh when you unwrap your tasteful gift which might also serve as a fast track ticket into your bed and subsequently…ahem. *cough* *re-adjusting glasses*
Right. Okay. So an engagement ring is a symbol of love. He finally gives you a ring to show for the five-year relationship and the promise of a future. The ring, of course is not the emotion itself because that doesn’t automatically fool proof your marriage because anything can happen. Yup. Even with that ring on your finger (I hope not!). And why do you find yourself analysing the clarity, cut, colour and carat (God bless Mr. X if it isn’t a diamond..if you’re Mr. X, I wish you all the best!). Well you do that because a bigger and more blinding rock means this is the real deal..Right? Wrong. What happens if what he proposes..you get your ring but still not satisfied?
Roses are a symbol of love. Even more special if they’re a dozen roses (still don’t understand the dozen roses idea) so what does three roses then symbolize then? Ok maybe he hasn’t called you in two days..worse still, you text him the forbidden ‘we-need-to-talk’ text but he still ditched you to watch the World Cup for 90minutes of HIS time then calls you and gists you about how Kaita has destroyed the hope of the Super Eagles. As if you care. We’ve become so conditioned to the emotion of love by words or actions that symbolize them that as soon as a few of these symbols are missing, we conclude that there is no ‘spark’ in the relationship. If we explained truly the emotion of love, we wouldn’t need an object to convince us.
I’m not saying symbols should be trashed but primary focus on it means we lust after someone and what they can provide to make us feel like desired. But the less dependent we are on symbols to give value to our relationships, the more we open ourselves up to experience love. True Love.