What “I Love You” Means
You shot back at me, "I love you. I love you. What does that even mean to you? What does that mean?"
By Gaby Dunn
When we’d fight and it was my fault, I’d try and soothe the wounds by saying, “I love you.” It’s a cheap trick, isn’t it? To use “I love you” to put a Band-aid on your anger? But often, I was so desperate to fix what was wrong it was the only thing I could think of to say. More eloquent words would not come out of my mouth. I needed not to lose you. I felt like all I had was that I loved you. But you’d call me out. I said, “I love you, come on.” You shot back at me, “I love you. I love you. What does that even mean to you? What does that mean?”
I felt terrible. I mean it when I am saying it. In the simplest way, “I love you.” I feel love for you. I am filled to the brim, overwhelmed, overflowing with how much I love you. I can’t express it any more than that in the moment. I need you to understand, to know. I would never say it if I didn’t feel it. But I understand why you’re left wondering. I understand that it seems empty. So I’m going to try and tell you what it means.
I love you means I want to be with you. If I could choose to see anyone, it would be you. I want to be sweet with you. I want to kiss your nose and text you that I hope your day is going well. I want to cook for you and ease your stress. I don’t want to fight. I don’t want manufactured drama. I don’t want resentment.
I want us to share everything. I want to crawl inside your skin and be one person. I am so overcome with how much you mean to me, with how much I adore you, with how much I feel toward you that I am actually at a loss for how to behave. I love you means I have nothing else. I could write poems and sonnets and blog posts about you all day and it would still not feel like enough to let you know how scared I am by how I feel about you. I love you means I’m terrified and hopeful and terrified about letting myself be hopeful.
I love you means I smile when I think about you. I do nice things for you without being asked. I want you to be happy more than I want the sun to rise in the morning. I want to kiss every inch of your face. I want to burrow under your covers with you and hug each other until neither of us are ever lonely again. I want to smell your T-shirt. I want to feel your hair.
I love you means I don’t want you to be sad, but I also want you to feel free to have whatever emotions you’re having. I want you to feel like you can be vulnerable and I will hold all the pieces very delicately and I will kiss them all as I put you back together. I want you to trust me. I want you to know that I never want to hurt you. I want to never be the reason you’re upset. I want you by my side, as my partner. I want to do mundane things with you like take out the trash and put away the dishes. I don’t want to keep secrets.
I love you means I understand that you are flawed and that I am too. It means I don’t want to be selfish. I want all the simple things with you — and the hard things, and I want us to survive them and I don’t want to walk away. I love you means I want to earn this. I love you means I want to be let in and to let you in. I love you means I am so close to destroying this because that is all I know how to work with. I love you means I want to put in the work with you, because I think you’re special and I think you’re worth it.
I love you means I want to sleep beside you and press myself against your back. I love you means I want to talk to you about everything and know everything about you. I want you to share what you’re thinking and I want you to feel safe doing that. I love you means I want us to be kind to each other, to want to be kind.
When I say, I love you, I’m not avoid intimacy or “cheating.” I am showing you my cards. I know who you are. I am not blind. I am not naive. You do not disappoint me. If I saw through the cracks, I would not run away. It means we will never be perfect and I accept that because I want everything about you that you’ve shown me so far. I love you means I want to consider you. I want to factor you into my plans. I want to know you see this as lasting too, maybe, and maybe that’s what really trips us up, right? In a good way though.
And that’s one inch of what I mean when I say, “I love you.” I don’t know if I have words for the rest.