In Love with Love

The following is a message I received in my MySpace inbox (yes, I still have one of those lol) as a suggested blog topic, but because I haven't an ounce of creativity in me today I'm posting it as a "Dear Abi" entry so that way it's easier for me to pull an answer out my ass. Thank-you, come again.

Dear Abi,

Do you think people say "I love you," "Love you," etc to total strangers or mere acquaintances more than they [should] say it to the people that are actually in their lives and truly love them in return?

Long story [kind of] short(er)... I have been noticing a lot lately just how many people throw around those three words... whether as friends by Internet or in real life, far too easily.

Yet the people whom they should definitely say it to... they do not.

Also, can "I love you" be used to the point that it holds absolutely no weight or bearing (i.e. similar to "hello" or "what's up?")?

I was already really thinking about this topic, as I recently noticed that some of my female friends will throw those words out to people that they rarely even kick it with and whom they are not even that close to (or sometimes, have met only once).

Yet I noticed that the friends whom they are often around and kick it with the most... they hardly or rarely even say it to.

Then I saw T.I. Jane's post here:

And it really got my mind to thinking.

Signed,
ok i couldn't think if a witty alias so u just get a "?" lol

Dear ? ... and while I'm at it Dear Gail, and Dear Christian too 'cuz this has been a reoccuring conversation amongst all of us lately,

Love is such a broad subject I don't even know where to begin but I'm gonna attempt to stay on topic here. I think I definitely throw around the word "love" more than I did before, but mostly because now that I'm older, I have a better understanding of what it means to ME.

Let me tell u what I love. I love shoes. I love food (so much that just now I accidentally ate some paper trying to bite into my eggplant parmesan pot pie too fast). I love to laugh until my tummy hurts and I can't breathe and it feels like I been on some John Basedow shit. I love looong, morning stretches. I love Bi-Rite's brown sugar with ginger swirl ice-cream and those rare, warm San Francisco nights where u don't mind waiting in line for it. I love getting my makeup done by my girl Tee. I love me and Rach's random ass but always entertaining conversations on AIM. I looove a nice, chilled, glass of beer to wind down to. I love pitbulls and polar bears. I love to recycle. Yah, I said recycle. I love how no matter how old I get, I still feel like a little girl whenever I hang out with my mommy. I love laying out on Kailua Beach and pretending I don't have a care in the world.. I love tulips. I love the way babies smell. I love it when I hear a song that's so powerful it takes me back to a moment in my past and makes it seem like it was just yesterday. And if I meet u for the first time, and ur awesome, and we click, I'll probably leave u a comment tomorrow saying, "What good times, I love this girl!"

And I'll mean it. But there's a difference. Obviously, it won't be in the same category of the love I have for my mom, or my family, or my girls, or my husband, or myself. I'm not saying that I love everything either. 'Cuz I DON'T love animal cruelty, or the way liver taste. And I definitely DON'T love my moms ex-boyfriend Tony-baloney-big-fat-phony. I hate to make such a fuss over the word "love" itself by saying there's 2 types of it in my book, but quite frankly - THERE IS. Or at least there's different levels of it.

Ultimately, I don't think loving a lot of things is something bad - long as u mean it. I just feel that with so much hate in the world, so loving something whether it's ur favorite pair of Js or ur great-grandmother shouldn't matter. I definitely don't substitute "hi," and, "hello," for it but if I directly tell u, "I love you," I definitely mean it and no, not in the same way I love my hot-pink patent leather combat boots either.

P.S. Still don't believe me? Then read this, stolen from Rach who stole it from someone else lol.