We Say “I Love You,” but Do We Really Love?

We all want to be loved, but do we really want to love?

Or maybe we simply tell ourselves that we love another person when, in reality, we love the image of them that we have created in our minds, the perfect image. The version of them that we believe will fill the void within us, the sense of lack we carry, the longing and need to be loved.

Have you ever thought about that?

The name you give to this thing called “love,” or when you say those three words, “I love you”, have you ever stopped to ask yourself whether it is really love, or whether you’ve simply put a label on something else?

Recently, I came across a few lines in a book I’m reading these days:

The Spanish language seems remarkably honest when it comes to conventional notions of love. Te quiero means “I want you” as well as
“I love you.” Then there is te amo, another expression for “I love you,”
but without that ambiguity. Interestingly, it is used far less often.

Perhaps because real love is just as rare.

Right?

Before we call something love, we should look inward.

Because what we often call love is not really love at all. It may sustain the early stages of a relationship, but sooner or later the curtain falls. The perfect image you’ve projected onto another person begins to unravel, and suddenly they are no longer who you imagined them to be.

And then what happens?

We begin to complain. We blame. We become disappointed.

And despite having someone beside you, that feeling of lack remains.
The emptiness is still there. So, in many cases, we stay trapped in the same loop. We think, “Maybe I just haven’t found the right person yet. Maybe someone else will finally love me in the way I need and fill this emptiness inside me.” So we move on.

But that doesn’t work either. And it never will.

How could it?

Eckhart Tolle wrote that the prerequisite of any genuine and authentic relationship is presence. A pure attention toward another person in which there is no wanting whatsoever. A space where another person is allowed to be exactly as they are. A space of being.

And in that space, your being touches the being of another.

Isn’t that beautiful?

It truly is.

But the truth is, we cannot offer that kind of presence to another person
if we cannot offer it to ourselves first. We cannot be fully present with someone else when we are disconnected from our own being.

If we never become aware of the patterns we keep repeating, if we continue telling ourselves that we love while unconsciously seeking only to be loved, then those three words, I love you, lose their meaning.

Because perhaps what we really mean is: I love being loved.

Don’t remain trapped in this loop. Look inward. Give yourself enough time to fill yourself with the beauty of presence. Become familiar with your own being. Because only then can you truly love. After all, you cannot pour into another cup when your own cup is empty.

And this happens so often. We hurt one another in the name of what we call love, when in truth it isn’t love at all. My heart aches whenever I see this pattern repeating itself. Love becomes obscured by our wanting.

And something so beautiful becomes increasingly rare.

Please become aware of this.

Offer yourself the gift of presence first, so you do not keep falling into the same cycle. And may you learn to love from a place of wholeness rather than lack. A place where two people offer each other the freedom to be exactly who they are. A place where both accept not merely the personality, the expectations, or the image, but the essence of being itself.

May you be able to give, and receive, that rare kind of love.

Thanks for reading!
If you’d like to send a little love my way, a coffee is always appreciated.