Love Analytics

(Thanks to Cherry-Bam)

Is it possible to quantify love?

Not really, as love is an emotion, a feeling that we give to other people and share it in return.

However, there are some things that we can look at in our lives and see just how much love we have coming back toward us. And I don't just mean romantic love, but just love in general.

This thought was sparked by a comment thread on Facebook today, and I thought about it a lot on my way home from work. I won't name the person involved, though they will, of course, recognize it and can out themselves if they want. (I know it's not grammatically correct, but I'm going to say "they" throughout this post just to keep the person anonymous).

Anyway, this person does the usual Facebook thing and posts status updates on either how they're doing or what they're up to, or just a general thought or two that passed through their head. This particular one was about being sick. I left a "get well soon" type comment and when I returned to it after a few more replies, I said that their comment threads are so long all the time, which must mean that they're really loved. They responded with yes, this particular thread was making them feel very loved and that they have some beautiful people in their life.

And it got me to thinking, putting together some other things that have come up recently. Sometimes these things come up completely out of the blue. You're going on your normal way, acting like you always act, being friends with someone, interacting with them, and then WHAM! Out of the blue they really tell you how much they value your friendship and your ability to listen or what have you.

These things start to add up and you realize just how loved and valued you really are. And to somebody who has self-doubts about who they are and what they bring to the world, that can be the biggest pick-me-up ever.

It almost becomes a catalog in your mind, where you can go back and page through when somebody said that you were important to them, or showed you that you're important to them by doing something for you. You think back when your chips are down a bit and realize that yes, you do have value to people. You are worthy. Other people do care about you.

Of course, this feeling should always be around in a marriage or romantic relationship, where these thoughts and feelings are shared and demonstrated often. If that doesn't happen, then it's not a very healthy relationship.

But getting it from friends, especially when you're not expecting it, can really give you a boost for your day. It can be something as simple as "I'm really glad you're doing this, because now it's become fun for me again," or "thank you for that. I've gained a new perspective that I didn't have before because of something you said."

I'm not saying that if you don't get this often, your friendships are not good (though I would suggest that, if you haven't made a friend feel good about something recently, you might want to think about it). Again, you can't quantify friendship and love, and you certainly can't say "Only two friends have told me they love me this month, while she has six friends who have said the same thing. She must be a better person than I am."

I would never say that, because it's not true.

I'm just speaking to the power that love can bring. It has the ability to boost you up out of a bad mental funk, to make you feel better when you feel down about something, to feel better about a friendship where you're not sure about the status of it. You feel much friendly love and affection for that person. Do they share it? And then, in the course of some conversation or other, they say or show that yes, they do share it.

I guess the ultimate answer is that there is no way to analyze and quantify how loved you are.

But you know it when you feel it.