#importance of words
The night I got engaged, someone asked a question about my fiancé - I don’t remember the question, nor do I remember my response, but I remember feeling shocked. Logically, I knew he was now my fiancé, not just my boyfriend, but it had come so quickly within the timing of the proposal that I hadn’t had time to transition over to our new titles. Thankfully, I don’t think I’ve been referred to as his fiancée yet… though he has now been introduced as “my fiancé” which is still just as strange. I remember it also took some time for me to say boyfriend. I often just said “we’re dating” but would introduce him by name, without the “title”.
Yet society is all about the label. Facebook and other social media sites encourage us to DTR or “define the relationship” using commonly accepted terms. We didn’t make it “facebook official” until almost a year and a half later (over some interesting circumstances*). We still haven’t made our engagement “facebook official” because I personally think it’s a rather poor way of announcing things. But it becomes a thing that we “have to know.” Even though there are those couples who break up for an hour before getting back together. That somehow becomes something that “we” have demanded to make rather public knowledge. I’m not sure why. Why is this more important than our dreams or goals in life? Why is it more important than what we mean when we say love? Why are there no boxes or announcements or statuses about that?
What I find strangest about the use of certain nomenclature is that it is often not about the couple or the relationship - it is about their community. The thing that made me the happiest about being engaged was NOT “being engaged” - it really didn’t change our relationship that much in terms of how we interacted with each other. Certainly the decision upped the commitment for both of us, and was an illustration/action demonstrating such but we haven’t actually behaved much more differently with each other. But I was thrilled that now it would be acceptable to others the degree to which we spent time together. Indeed, my other friend, who got engaged before us said something similar: that she felt freer to take time to just hang out as the two of them once they got engaged, that people would understand.
While extreme “intimacy” often acts as an indicator that engagement is coming, it is also often frowned upon outside of engagement/marriage (and occasionally within). Men might be asked if they’re “whipped” while women may be cautioned not to give too much too soon. Ironically, in romantic movies, the same level of intimacy often is the precursor to (and cause of) the relationship, while to the main female protagonist, it is seen as indicator/proof for the validity of the relationship: he’s so sweet, this has to be the one!
I can understand that relationship labels can be helpful for couples to be on the same page about where they stand with each other, as well as acting as reassurance to parents who are worried about their children’s degree of investment. However, I also feel like the existing vocabulary fails to capture what relationships can look like and distort people’s perceptions of the progression of romance by their categorization. Serious dating and engagement are closer than engagement and marriage, which are again closer than the first years of marriage and the later years of marriage. Someone can transition from friend to best friend to fiancé just as easily as a lover might become a boyfriend/girlfriend to fiancé to friend.
Maybe it’s just because I don’t hear the term very often, but calling someone my fiancé formalizes and codifies something I feel like is more organic than a stepladder. But I do it anyway.
LOVE & ONLY : Why My Definition of Love Makes Me Miserable
We use the word “love” so often that one would think we know what it means - or at least collectively agree. But we really don’t, and the disagreements and misunderstandings tend to play out to our disfavor. Personally, my developed definition of love caused me quite the crisis.
Growing up, my parents were constantly comparing me to other children. Most Asian parents do (but not all), because they want the best for their children. They want them to succeed and they’re willing to do just about anything to get them there in a “clean”/“ethical” manner.
It’s just the way love works for them. It’s very much family and generation-based. The love between the generations: parent-child, grandparent-grandchild, etc. was much more important than the spousal or sibling love. It was about advancing the family line and the desire to sacrifice and provide for your children, who would then feel indebted and provide for you in their time, was seen as a natural sentiment. Anyone who didn’t feel such instinctual callings was unnatural - or a bad person.
But because American society heralds the self, my teachers always lauded me and told me how special I was - which my parents then told me was simply flattery, or an area I needed to work even harder in if I had an aptitude for it. My peers seemed to hear nothing but “you’re so wonderful” or “you’re the best” which was just a very different message than I was given. No matter what I achieved, I always felt like second-best, which was an unpleasant feeling. So I developed an idea of love as finally being “the best”. It didn’t matter what anyone else thought of me. I wanted to be “the best” to someone. Anyone. And that person would be the One. Because he would see me as the primary object of his love.
I say he because I identify as heterosexual and because in my mind, this was only possible in a romantic relationship. My parents had me and my sister. I also loved my sister and would never want her to receive less love or feel lesser, as I did. So family was out of the question. If I ever formed my own family, it would be me and a spouse, and for the integrity of the family, the children shouldn’t have a favorite parent. I could adopt as a single parent, but I felt that would be unbalanced, and should I ever have another child, I would not want to have a favorite (the “perfect” love I sought I also imagined as reciprocal). Similarly, with friends, I imagined most of my friends would at one point or another be in a romantic relationship, which would be their stable, eternal love in a way that friendship rarely is - especially for people like me and my family, who moved frequently.
As someone who believes in God and Christ, I have also been told many times that I should seek out my love from God. But my definition again poses a dilemma. While I believe God to be the perfect being, and thus the perfect and most deserving object of love, and, being love itself, that His love towards me is perfect - it is THE definition of love - despite it all, because God loves everyone simultaneously and, so I believe, equally if differently, it could not be “my perfect love” because I wanted to be the only one. The one above all the others. And if I were God’s favorite, that would contradict my idea of God. It’s possible that God can love me uniquely and individually, and He certainly loves me more than anyone human could, but it’s a conundrum that my brain has yet to accept as possible despite the seeming illogic (after all, God does sometimes defy logic - He can, He created it).
So my love had to be with one man, in a permanent romantic relationship. Which in and of itself is simple enough. To be loved solely and above all else is actually, I’ve found, fairly difficult for anyone to accomplish. Furthermore, having tested this in a relationship, it is incredibly stressful for one person to bear the responsibility of fulfilling my entire desire for love. Knowing this, it seems like I should just alter my definition. But I have yet to succeed in doing so. I think it’s because some part of me still longs for that which the definition contains. And I have to let go of the hope that it will be fulfilled, or actually see it to fruition…
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