*extremities*

a colleague today told me about her 14-year-old brother who brought his 14-year-old girlfriend home for dinner. her mom simply freaked. she just didn't know how to deal with "losing" her baby boy. and while this brother of hers was the kind of boy to not lift a finger around the house (and get away with it), at dinner he got up, cleared his girl's plate and asked her "how did you like it honey?" with a smile.

it's things like this which make me really laugh and wonder.

i laugh because i realize that it's so typical for young ones in love to lash out extremities. some of which may be regretted later on. now this boy carlos is probably one week away from saying "i love you" to this poor girl, and it seems to me that the words "i love you" can be so unbelievably carelessly used these days.

i wonder for this reason: if young people are going to throw around "love" like an everyday word of passion, then what does it mean for people to say it when they really mean it? do we need to come up with a stronger word for love then?

when i was growing up, just saying that you "liked" someone was such a huge deal, complete with the whispers and the giggles. let alone saying that you "like liked" someone. so now, when kids say that they "love" someone, does it carry the same meaning as it used to?

personally, i feel that this is how it should be: once you truly love something or someone, it never goes away. i am a strong believer in eternal love. maybe that's because i'm Christian and i cherish the eternal love that God has for me. but this probably doesn't apply for everyone in this world (although i do hope that one day it does). but perhaps this explains my intolerance for people who say that they "love someone always", but then years down the track it turns out it's not true.

nevertheless, i try to think 10 years or 20 years in the future and i can imagine the linguistically emotional stuntedness of teenagers. if no one says that they "crush" someone or that they "like" someone, and if "love" loses it's meaning... then what's left?


xoxo. pheebs.