There is no love for <3

I'm sorry, but this <3 business has got to stop. It was Woody Allen in "Anne Hall" who pointed out that the word love had been so overused that it didn't really have a strong meaning anymore. I think he said something like, "Love is too weak a word for what I feel - I luuurve you, you know, I loave you, I luff you..." And, although we laughed at the absurdity of the word "luff" and Alvy Singer's miserable attempt to show how much he cared, it mirrored how today's society attaches no significance to the word love.

Today everyone loves everything. We love our new "favorite" band, without even having really listened to their entire CD. We love our new shoes that we bought on sale - just like we loved the pair that we bought on sale the day before. We love celebrities that we have never met, save the fact that we have read every gossip magazine article that was printed about them. We love dinner tonight - it's even better than the dinner that we loved the night before. We love the person we just started dating, even though we don't even know their full name.

If it wasn't enough that the world love had been thrown around and become so commonplace that it lost meaning, someone had to invent the <3 sign. In some twisted universe, the <3 is supposed to look like a heart. I guess it does, if you tilt your head and squint your eyes. This <3 sign made it even easier to tell someone you cared - or better yet, it made someone think that you cared. Leave a <3 on the note that you are using to convince that other person to do your homework. Send <3 in a text message to the girl or guy you want to hook up with tonight. Cover your myspace in <3 to convince the viewer how cute you are. The sad thing is that the <3 sign is so persuasive because it is supposed to represent this idea of love. However love's meaning has been cheapened by the fact that is overused by everyone. It doesn't mean anything anymore; it doesn't even mean strong affection. It simply is a word that is used to describe something or someone that we do not mind is present if we are there. We may have it tattooed on our bodies, but it doesn't bring the sign meaning.

I think I'd rather be hated than loved. Hatred brings up so many strong feelings. If you love someone, you'll probably won't even waste five minutes of the day thinking about them. (If you are obsessed with them - what a lot of people are mistaking for love these days - it may be a different matter. You could be thinking of them all the time, while you are awake and while you are asleep. But obsession is never good, it only leads to stalking which leads to restraining orders, and in no way does obsession ever mean love.) However if you hate someone, you probably spend most of the waking moment of your life thinking of ways to murder that object of your un-affection as to cause them the most pain. That hated person is always on your mind - and probably a lasting image on your retinas on night. You probably don't remember every person you said you loved, but trust me, more than likely you can name each person you said you hated.

I'm not saying that love doesn't exist in this world. I'm sure it does. And, to those who are truly in love with something - whether it be someone else, their occupation or anything else, consider yourselves lucky. But the fact of the matter is, the majority of the world is under this illusion that this idea of <3, this idea of the modern day "love" is a true emotion. Love/<3 is anything but a feeling - it's faÁade for desensitized people to pretend they care.