What is Love for Teenagers?

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“I love you”.

What exactly does that mean?

Does it have a universal meaning, or does it vary from person to person?

In other languages the meaning of  love has different meanings. Those in Greece have multiple words to capture the complexity of the term. In Greek, agape means solely the love of the soul, and other words are used to show different levels of attraction.  Eros is used to show physical attraction; brotherly love is described as Philia; storge is used to describe natural affection as the one of parents towards their children.

In Latin, and in the languages that derive from it, there are different ways to express that classic phrase “I love you“. The Latin word to describe love in this sense is the verb amo. In modern language, the word translated in amore for Italian, amour for French, amar in Spanish and Portuguese, and dragoste in Romanian.

The word’s meaning is a union of love, physical attraction, care, friendship and attraction of the soul. The word has many meanings in its definition, but this definition is possible only if all these emotions are experienced at once. This is because amicizia means friendship, attenzioni means care, and simply liking someone is said as piace. There are multiple words that exist to explain and allow to not misuse the word amo so that its meaning remains intact and misunderstandings are avoided.

I love you certain involves a wide range of interpretation, and there’s no defined meaning attributed to the three words. Consequently, when a person says or hears “I love you” the possibilities on how the statement was intended or interpreted can certainly vary.

Who says it and why it is said is an important place to start.. For some love has an idyllic meaning and this connotation makes it extremely important when said to someone else.

“Love is when you really like someone and you would do literally anything to make the other person happy,” said senior Johnathan Riad. “Love’s when you dream of creating a family with someone. It’s a promise that you’ll never get tired of them.”

Senior Michaela Salvo agreed.

“I believe that ‘I love you’ is as to say that you want to spend the rest of your life with someone,” she said. 

However, this is not a conclusion that one can rush to.

“It’s not easy to know when you love someone,” she added. “It’s something that you can only understand through time and getting to know someone.”

For others love might appear as a commitment, and not everybody is always ready to commit to someone else’s needs.

“Love’s annoying because you have to take care not only of your problems, but also of your partner’s problems,” explained junior Alyssa Pitchen. “And then when the jealously kicks in, even more problems are created, and it’s just a pain to deal with.”

As Pitchen suggested, love  can lose some of its luster between two people. The criticism is true for many instances where the expression is misused because it mostly represents a desire to continue a healthy relationship, and in the many occasions the expression is said too soon to be truly genuine, as senior Thomas Simpson believes.

” It’s an overly used expression, and just because people use it to describe fragile emotions, when these emotions wither away, the word obviously can’t be consider the same way,” he said. “Because of all these bad uses, the true meaning of the word is spoiled, and it can’t be taken as seriously.”

It is possible that the statement is overused because teenagers are too young to grasp its true meaning, and this is recognized by some who consider it a common yet unknown word.

“Love for teenagers is a trial where we try to understand what the real meaning of he word is,” explained senior Lena Richards. “We use it so much because we don’t understand love and mistaking is our way to learn what it really means.”

“We don’t know nor understand what love is,” said senior Jacob Broyles “We’re too young to understand. The closest I can get is that love is when you get someone’s problems in front of yours, and you’re happy when they’re happy.”

Probably the meaning of love becomes clear when you think that life will never be the same without that person, maybe that’s love, but these are only guesses in the waiting of knowing what it really feels like to love someone.

Some see love as an experience among two people who really like each other and want to spend the most time possible together. Some give great importance to the time together, others do see it more as a temporary caring between two people.

So how can it be defined?

“Love is when you don’t mind spending every second with a person,” said senior Emily Hood. “The idea of being able to spend every second with my boyfriend is what makes me happy, and I wouldn’t change that for anything in the world.”

“Love in high school is the idea of wanting to spend a lot of  time with someone. It’s making them the most important person of your this time,” said senior Christopher Whitener, “however, when two stay together in high school, they do it knowing that as high school ends their relationship will end.”

There is an idea where love is proven in multiple times of life. Just because the expression is used in different occasions with different people it doesn’t mean that the emotions weren’t felt.

“Love is when you like a person for a very long time and you have deep feelings about them,” said senior Gabrielle Sceia. “The fact that you said I love you to someone else in the past doesn’t change the fact that you love the person you’re with. However, this doesn’t mean that a past relationship was any less loving or important. It’s just a part of the past, but that has no importance over the present.”

Many meanings are given to these three little words and it’s hard to let people agree on the true meaning of them. For some it shows affection, for others it’s a commitment, others see it as the words that must be said to only one person in a lifetime, and others see it as the difference between adulthood and youth and consider its understanding a milestone of life.

The computer fun surveys conducted by the National Honor Society try to help students find love. However, its quite clear that “love” is far more complex than an interest survey could ever determine.