Why I don’t always say I love you

Those. Three. Words.

Saying I Love You should mean something. I hope I never see the day when it becomes such a cliché that it means nothing. That is why I only use those three words in that order when I feel it should be said.

I have had one girlfriend who I loved, but I can count the times I have said “I Love You” to her on one hand.

When I see my friends and I am about to go, or they are about to go, they will often say “Bye! I love you” in that friendship kind of way. I respond with a “See you later”.

When I’m talking to my parents on the phone, and it’s time to say goodbye, I tell them. They say ‘Bye, I love you”. I say “Bye”.

I loved that girlfriend (at least I think I did). I love my friends. I love my parents. But I don’t say I love you as a pleasantry. I feel those three words should be expressed when they are needed. I don’t want to throw them around as if it’s a matter of saying “Alright, take it easy” or “I’ll see you later”. Saying “I love you” is a way of expressing your inner and most heart-felt emotion and compassion for one another. When I tell someone I love them, it is when I need to tell them I love them.

My girlfriend at the time didn’t understand, and I didn’t want to put her through, why I was with another friend (who happened to be a girl) one night and not with her because I was severely depressed. After I gained her trust when she believed I didn’t cheat on her that night, I said those three words.

When I was saying goodbye to a best friend I knew I would probably never see again, I said those three words.

When another friend helped me to put the knife down and stop from killing myself, I told her thank you, and I said those three words.

When my mom and I were both crying because I admit to her that I was extremely close to suicide, it ended up in a type of argument. She came to tell me she didn’t know what to do, and she was going to bed. It was then, when my love was suffocated and buried immensely by my depressed self, that I said those three words.

Had I told these people those three words on pleasantry occasions, saying “I love you” at those moments would not have been so meaningful.

Maybe I should tell them this:

“I don’t always say ‘I Love You’ because I love you.”