No, it was not accidental. This is a direct result of the conversation we’ve been having. I’ve never said that actions or behaviors are antithetical to love. They quite often are an expression of love, but as I’ve already pointed out, you can behave in certain ways that in another context might seem like an expression of love but are really just going through the motions. Besides the example I’ve already given about listening to your boss that you don’t like because you feel that you have to, how about the behaviors of “nice guys” who are not acting that way from a place of genuine caring, but in order to get something in return?

And by your metric, I don’t really love my friend whom I cut out of my life because I didn’t stay with her through thick and thin. I’m sorry, but that simply isn’t the case. I love and miss her still, and I also made the right decision to no longer associate with her.

Your characterization of love as responsibility sounds vaguely Calvinistic. Or maybe that’s just your personal love language — acts of service? But that doesn’t mean that love is quantifiable (by science or anyone else) or that other love languages aren’t also valid. (Words of validation, Receiving gifts, Quality Time, Physical touch) My point is not that love doesn’t or shouldn’t include being of help and support to each other; it’s that love is so much more than that — an energy that transcends human attempts to put it into little boxes.

I have to thank you for the debate though because what I got really, really clear as I was writing this is that the reason I experience love with people whom I have little day to day life with is that when I am with them, I am accessing the spark of the divine which is inside of me. When I am with them, I am my most real, most authentic, most whole self. I am approaching God within, and if God = love then I am also accessing that kind of transcendent love that has nothing to do with any kind of doing; it’s simply about being. Probably a topic for a future blog…..