Every time I opened my eyes to glance at him as he held me, he had a smile on his face. I mentioned this to him, to which he replied, “Because I’m happy.”
It’s always bothered me when people toss certain words around. Not just words like “gay” and “retarded,” but words to describe emotions: “love,” most commonly. People like to say they “love” chocolate or they “love” fried eggs or they “love” hamsters while in reality they simply like their chocolate and eggs and hamsters a whole hell of a lot.
The same goes for “happy” and “hate.” To me, feelings like love, sadness, hate, and happiness are on completely opposite sides of the emotional spectrum—in the middle you have feelings like “like”, “dislike”, “annoyance”, or “feeling pretty bummed”. People who say they “hate” tomatoes are really just not very fond of the taste, and people who say buying a new cell phone cover will make them happy will actually just be in a better mood because they’re rewarding themselves with a new material possession; lord knows people “love” their material possessions these days.
Being that these feelings have their own corner of the spectrum, I feel only a few things should really apply to each these feelings, especially when it comes to people. You can only truly love a select few—family, significant other, some close friends. I could never “love” two men at the same time. The same goes for “hate,” as I’ve found I’ve never been able to truly hate more than one person.
Tossing such words around makes it somewhat difficult to know how people really feel - especially toward other people. I know I love my family, and I have loved those of the opposite sex, but would I go so far as to say that I “love” my friends? People say they love their friends, and suppose I can say it too. One should love those who will always be there for them—family, of course, and quite possibly friends as well. However, I’ve never known exactly what to do when a friend just kinda throws out “I love you” to me, whether it’s a male or female. For a male, that could be interpreted as they are “in love with” me. For a female, all I can ever manage to reply is “Aww!” Thus the perception of “love” ends up getting screwed-up. Men have told me they loved me but turned out to be terrible people—and good liars. Out of the guys I told I “loved,” it may have only really been true for about two of them. I may have thought I loved them at the time, and looking back I realize that was most likely the case.
I remember the last time a man told me I made him happy. He told me this long before he told me he loved me (which was most likely just a lie), and it probably took me a little more off-guard than if he had actually said he loved me. While he plainly told me I made him happy as opposed to just saying he was happy while holding me, I still thought the same thing. To me, telling someone they make you happy almost means more than telling them you love them, as the word “love” is tossed around so frequently it’s damn near lost its meaning. But when you truly love something, it makes you truly happy.
I’m not happy, and I’m aware of it. Many people are generally happy with the occasional sad feeling - I’m the opposite. People point out that I should be happy for some things: my family, my home, my job, and my beautiful son. I would say I’m more thankful for these things than happy about them. While there are things that make me happy - my son, of course - it’s because I love them. They go hand-in-hand. However, I myself am still not happy.
