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I just discovered that the word ‘love’ originated quite un romantically from the French word for egg “l’oeuf”, which was used to denote the concept of nothing. It is still used when keeping score in a game of tennis.

I’ve always been very skepical about the word, it’s one of those words that are often used when loading the language. You get it often in books about politics and current affairs. One of the things a general education  is supposed to teach you is how to be aware of empty arguments. The sort that is loaded with impassioned words, where the writer is arguing from rhetoric and not dialectic or logic.

The word ‘love’ has been used a lot as a means for emotional bullying. I use it, and I find it charming when men say it to me (yes, I have several in my closet and under my bed, all in action figure clam-shell boxes ready for play), but only at appropriate moments. Preferably not in a regular state of mind. One man who was for some reason beyond my comprehension, insufferably besotted with me, started yelling at me on the street, accusing me of being so god damned annoyingly hyper rational. But like it or not, there is a reason for everything.

In tennis, the 0 score is recorded as ‘love’. No one really knows if this is a reference to ‘playing for love’, but certainly when you do ’something for love’, it means you are not charging anything (time or money) for it. Perhaps even giving something of yourself to the cause. I can see how one can love a philosophy, or a book, or some film or other, but I feel hardpressed to see how one can ‘love’ a person. I mean, it’s never unconditional, is it?

Perhaps if two people are insufferably, sickly, sweetly in love, then the fiction holds. “I love you” can stand. It is a mutual exchange of desire for desire and dependency for dependency. But otherwise it’s a sort of emotional bullying. It never comes alone.

“I love you, don’t…”

“If you loved your country, you’d…”

“She says she loves me, but… ”

I can’t help but hear the clauses attached to the word. I think I’ve only ever used it once or twice when fairly sober, and I know my usage of it was laden with meaning beyond doing something for nothing. Both times I felt this definite sense of “I need you”. The first time it was reciprocated easily, and over time as the relationship broke down, the word became increasingly laden with shit, for lack of a better word. The second time, I have a feeling he was just saying it just because.

I said a lot of it that second time, mostly because he was equally skeptical about it as I was. How much we meant it when we said it to each other is definitely suspect, but I believe it was the only time I was confortable with it. We liked each other for very clear reasons I could write down on a piece of paper, point by point. Which made me comfortable with the whole deal.

Perhaps I am too annoyingly sceptical about life.