My always brilliant Poetics professor said something so intriguing to our class on Monday that I will be stopping the progress on my looming ten page Modernism paper (wait, progress? I meant procrastination. Whatever, those words share a lot of the same letters) to ponder it further.
The word "like" is a horrible word. It lacks commitment. It lacks transformation. I hate similes. They pervade bad poetry, and they don't create a concrete comparison because the author is unwilling to say that you are the sun to his heliocentric universe, only that you may or may not perhaps kinda resemble the sun to his heliocentric universe.
"I like you."
What does that even mean? Sure, it carries with it a positive connotation, but what else? I prefer you? I have interest in you? I hold some type of feeling that I'm unwilling to accept and therefore will not voice it for you? We have become so attached to this word "like" that we use it as a space filler, unable to trust our own word choice enough to eliminate it. We're so careful about what we say to other people that we can't even give them definitive accounts of what we ate for breakfast. (I, like, was too busy cramming for my French exam to even eat a, like, bagel.)
Okay. So. "I like you." It's more than scary to think about the other ways this sentiment can be expressed. "I love you." Too much commitment. "I care for you" Too maternal. "I lust for you." ...Probably the most accurate, but that can almost be just as bad.
"I'm interested in you. We should get to know each other better." We've become so attached to this word "like" and our "games" and we can't even commit to a sentence as simple as this. We are so scared of the complete vulnerability and transformation that occurs with the elimination of the word "like" that we would sooner live in the silence of our interest/love/lust than put that kind of commited statement out on the table.
Better to pine than commit to a real emotion.
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