Crazy Little Thing Called Love

The other day, I was talking with a friend about how the concept of "love" is really lost by our generation, and certainly lost by the upcoming generation. If not lost, it is under appreciated. At first, I really had mixed feelings on this subject. I was not sure why I had these feelings, nor was I sure, after greater deliberation, where I stood on this subject.

Both my friend and I admitted to us being fairly old-fashioned in the sense that it takes us a while to physically say those "magic words", "I love you". Looking back on some of my past relationships, even the longest ones, I have not said "I love you" to any of my significant others. Granted, part of this may be due to the fact that some lasted no longer than a month.

This really got me thinking. Do I take too long to love someone, or does everyone else seem to jump to the "love" stage too quickly?

My thought on this, people jump in way too quickly.

Based on observations of my friends, I see too many people who jump in right away towards the love direction. Rather than taking their time to make sure that they really love the other person, they, after two or three dates even, skip to the love state.

This, I have heard, is referred to as the "honeymoon state". What I consider this to be is a state where people put on a different persona for the first couple of dates trying to impress the other individual. In doing so, they give off a far different aspect of who they really are. Because of this, it is easy to see why this honeymoon stage leads to "love". However it is after this stage that the true nature of a person comes out; this is when love is shattered and hearts are broken, despite the short-lived relationship.

I would like to say that I haven't committed this same "act" of falling for someone too early in a relationship, but I have not gotten to that "love" stage. To me, the word 'love' is a very powerful word; this is the same with the opposite word: hate.word on the other end of the spectrum: hate. Love and hate are the epitome of these positive and negative feelings towards another person. There is this spectrum that, for me, is very hard to feel these emotions towards anyone. It takes a long time.

What are your thoughts on love and our generation?