Limited by Love and Friendship

[Smile friend! You are loved.]

As human beings we constantly try to capture and classify our experiences in familiar words and the conceptual clouds associated with particular terminology. The experiences are reworked to fit into a narrative with which we are familiar, and likewise, our use of words becomes limited by how we think we are supposed to experience the world.

Simple, right?

Take the word love. It has a large conceptual cloud of anticipated meaning and nuance hovering around it, including implications of attraction, affection, inspiration, passion, and desired intimacy.

While technically love can be erotic or platonic, familial or divine, in contemporary Western societies it mostly suggests the erotic form, which tends to claim romance and intimacy as part of a triad of sexuality, which itself is reduced to a lusty physicality. And while it's OK to use the familial notion of love for close relatives and some deeply committed friends who are essentially fictive kin, the use of the word is pretty much exhausted at this point except for crude references to a supposedly but often not so intense desire for some object or experience. Such as, "Yes, I'd love a hot chocolate" as an expression of enthusiasm and appreciation.

The latter usage, the hot chocolate love, doesn't take the word too seriously, and the familial variety may or may not. In a social, sexual coupling, particularly of the long term variety, a fuller range of the implications of the word are not only possible but even expected, so that it can be an appreciation of the beauty and connection with the other, the sexual attraction and passion experienced, the familial bond anticipated or realized, and the appreciation of the invitation to greater intimacy (which is not just a synonym for sexual activity but any kind of baring a part of one's nature that is normally reserved or hidden).

These expected and accepted uses limit our ability to name and explore our broader range of experiences, experiences that might otherwise be referred to as encounters with or expressions of love. Is a person you feel a strong connection to, share fragile or timid aspects of yourself with, and feel inspired around also your spouse, close kin, or someone you've known since childhood? If so, you can say you love them. At least if you identify as a woman. Otherwise that childhood friend thing is shaky. Might want to find a euphemism for that one. Maybe for that relative, too.

What about someone who is relatively new to your life, or isn't the object of sexual desire, or isn't a close family member? You must be impulsive, needy, or hyperbolic to use that word for your experience of and sense of connection to such a person! And while you're at it, don't forget to cheapen the word, to wear it translucently thin and make it a redundant echo, by using it regularly out of obligation to identify and reify the kinds of relationships where it's usage is not only accepted but expected. Don't give it time to rest, recharge, or renew. Don't acknowledge it where it isn't permitted unless you just plan to use it everywhere without restraint.

Speaking of draining the vitality of important words, make sure that while you overuse the word love in highly confined social space, you are referring to everyone you've ever met or connected to through in person contacts and social media as a friend. But only if you are planning on using them as a convenient contrivance for practicing hollow politeness, as an audience to hide the fact that you are talking to yourself (from yourself), or as an ego massage. If you are truly going to try to cultivate relationships of significance, if not always depth, with such people, offering them respect and sincere affection, that's just lame. Or Pollyannaish. Or -- wait, did I already say lame?

Love and friendship. Simple terms belying a deep vein of potential and complexity of experience with other people, yet bound fraudulently by conventional usage and expectation. Especially for those identifying with masculine gender forms. What depths and mysteries of the heart await those who push past such convention to express and explore experiences befitting the full range of such terms rather than their limited contemporary confines through our unquestioned social constructions?

Don't think words have power? Violate their safe boundaries and follow them into a place you haven't been before. Love. Friendship. Spirit. Intimate. Passion. Glory. Fear. Help. Divine.

Then drop me a line, let me know how it went.