“I love you.”
I’ve already
said it to a handful of my closest guy friends, and recently, I decided to say
it to more of them. I’m not sure why, exactly. I’d actually made this
resolution a while ago, before the coronavirus turned our world upside down.
Sure, it shouldn’t take a pandemic to tell people how I really feel, but
it shouldn’t take events like weddings or funerals either.
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In this
COVID-19 reality, the stakes seem higher. With our mortality and fragility
feeling more present than ever, there’s a sense of urgency to say and do the
hardest, most important things in life. Plus, with my other love languages
temporarily obsolete under the circumstances, my words often feel like all I’ve
got.
“This time of
social distancing can change the type of intimacy in relationships,” says Dr.
Paulette Sherman, a New York City-based psychologist and host of “The Love
Psychologist” podcast. “If you can’t [do] activities together, you’d be more
likely to rely upon words to connect.”
In romance, if
someone responds to your ultimate love-filled confession with anything less
than an equally emotional response, it’s a killer.
When I told
Rick, my former college roommate, that I loved him, he didn’t say it back.
Instead, he responded with, “Ben, that’s awesome. You’re the best. Thank you.”
In this case,
I didn’t need him to. He wasn’t dismissive or avoidant, nor did he try to dilute
the intensity with humor. He had taken a pause. He was surprised, clearly
touched; I could tell it meant something to him. It was less about what he said
(or didn’t say), and more about how he said it. That was everything I needed to
hear.
It’s exhilarating
to imagine being so open without hesitation, allowing myself to feel, give and
love more deeply. There’s so much more within me ready to be shared.
Not to be
dramatic, but during a conversation with my former coworker and longtime friend
Mike, I felt like I was transcending myself. I catapulted subtly into a higher
plane of existence, where everything was a little bit richer, fuller, more
colorful.
On the phone,
I quickly realized I didn’t urgently need to express my affection to Mike as
much as I did my admiration — for his kindness, his perspective, his
indefatigable dedication to doing the right thing.
“I’ve always
looked up to you,” I told him after plenty of rambling reverence, my eyes
welling. “And I just want you to know I love you.”
“I love you,
too,” he responded and, unprompted, launched into a soliloquy on what he
appreciates about me. I wasn’t fishing for or expecting a
compliment, but his reciprocation felt natural, not forced. It all felt right.
Despite our
cultural progress around gender and sexuality, guys’ relationships — especially
those among cisgender heterosexual men — are still at the mercy of homophobia,
traditional gender roles and the pressure to exercise true “manliness.”
“Men face
barriers of stigma still about expressing feelings to other men, looking mushy
and even appearing gay in some groups,” says Sherman. “They also may not have
had male role models who said, ‘I love you’ to them, so there could be a covert
message that this isn’t done amongst men.”
One of my
friends says those three words with such comfort that I assumed he’d always
readily expressed affection. “No,” he told me, it’s actually pretty new; it
wasn’t until college when his step team, dance crew, and fraternity modeled and
cultivated brotherly love. As a Dance major, he expanded his definition of
masculinity by learning to embrace his own version of how a heterosexual man
acts. And as the nephew of two gay uncles, he confronted his preconceived
notions of sexuality, and grew more accepting of others and of himself.
A few years
back he said “I love you” to me, so I started saying “I love you” to him.
Another friend mentioned that his best friend started saying it in middle
school, so he started saying it to me. We’ve said it ever since.
“It only seems
to take one friend to start being more verbally affectionate, to challenge and
change the existing interpersonal norms of an entire group,” says Joel Ketner,
a marriage and family therapist based in Columbus, Ohio. “It’s like a group of
kids on a pool deck in the summertime, where nobody wants to be the first one
to jump in. The fear is being the only one who jumps in, and having your
friends remain dry and on the deck, laughing at you. But, when the kids all
jump in together, they have a great time playing in the water.”
There’s value
and intimacy in “love you” or “I love you, dude,” but when I say it, I’m going
to say it. I want to own my words. Who loves you? I do.
Who do I love? I love you. I want to let the last word linger,
waving like a flag in the fresh morning air, proud and powerful and true.
There are
plenty of other guys I love and who love me, but I didn’t resolve to say it to
all of them. I didn’t want it to feel contrived, or for them to feel put upon.
Words are a way I prefer to give and receive love, but they’re not everyone’s
way (and certainly not the only way).
“A lot of men
may say [‘I love you’] differently or just show it behaviorally instead,” notes
Sherman. “They may also show their love through loyalty and being present by
spending time together, and doing things they like together or by acts of
service.”
One of my
friends kisses my cheek, hugging me with intention and heat. His mother died a
handful of years ago, and perhaps he holds on so tight because he knows what it
feels like to lose something so close to the heart.
Another friend
invited me to stay on his couch every Sunday for months after a breakup, when I
didn’t want to be alone. I know he would’ve let me crash every night if I
wanted to.
Then there are
the guys who have helped me move after every sudden apartment nightmare,
possibly the most selfless and thankless thing you can do. Love is about being
down. Checking in. Showing up. We find all kinds of ways to say “I love you”
without saying it.
After saying
“I love you” three separate times, I found myself calling up other friends and
having entirely different conversations. I checked in on a friend who had been
struggling with his mental health. Another call was to unload some of the
anxiety I’ve been feeling myself. Another was to apologize for something I’d
done to a friend years before, which we’d never fully discussed.
It seems this
outpouring of love can inspire us to have hard discussions, express more fully
and share other difficult emotions: vulnerability, fear, remorse, sadness and
gratitude. I think we can break down barriers to achieve realer relationships,
to become more present and more empathetic. I think we can broaden our
definition of what love and friendship — and love in friendship — look like.
Familial love,
while consistent and unconditional, can sometimes feel automatic, thoughtless,
pedestrian. Meanwhile, romantic love, our monogamous standards tell us, is
exclusive: You can only give it one person at a time, and it’s subject to being
revoked at any moment. Platonic love, though, is generous. It’s inclusive. It’s
cultivated, earned, solidified, and we can bestow it with a freewheeling
fearlessness, like Oprah gifting cars. We can take comfort in its certainty and
purity and foreverness, then watch it ripple in ways we don’t realize or
intend.
“Ok, I’ll talk
to you soon,” I told Mike before we hung up.
“I love you,
Ben!” I heard Mike’s partner call from the other room.
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