Love?

The Independent asked you, Harvard students, to start off your week by answering the over-simplified question: what is love? There was, however, a caveat: your response could only be one word. 

To answer this question, respondents had to ask themselves a multitude of other questions first: what does it feel like to be loved? What does it mean to love? To whom would I say I love? When was the last time I said, “I love you”? When did I know I loved or was loved? Regardless of whether love is “give or take,” what encapsulates this feeling, action, force, state of mind?  

The responses, Weighted-blanket, Pain, Warm, Comfortable, Completeness, Home, and Quiet, described love as a feeling, an experience. Dedication, Unconditional, Everything, Growth, Value, Caring, and Fulfilling stated love as an action. Freedom, Endless, Peace, Complicated, Real, and Unstoppable generalized love as a force. 

The most striking aspect of this poll is every response displayed a belief in love. No one questioned its existence or diminished its power. Maybe it had to do with the matter-of-fact way we posed the question, maybe only those who believe in love answered the poll, or maybe, love is something or someone we know, but can’t universally define. So, when given the opportunity, we do what comes most naturally: we tell stories. 

Our next question elicited these stories. We asked: if you’ve ever been in love, when did you know? 

“While writing in my journal and realising I’d written I loved him” 

“When I realized I wanted to spend every minute of everyday with this person” 

“He put on a ridiculous hat, and I couldn’t stop laughing. I realized I had been in love for a while”

“When I realized my best friend was the one I wanted to tell all my secrets and insecurities” 

Love tends to evade us, sneaking around in the background, growing larger and brighter, until that sudden, seemingly random, slap-in-the-face moment. The one we all know as so jarring, it almost hurts; so fleeting, you can get away with pretending to miss it; and so tongue-tying, your only response is action, “When I realized I might lose her.”  Suddenly, we find ourselves taking ownership over what or whom we love: My boyfriend, My mom, My dad, My family, Myself, My team, and My best friend. A form of self-preservation, our “my’s” make us believe love is fragile—either we protect it or we never touch it—like carrying a case of eggshells that must stay intact, “When I thought about them more than I thought about myself.” For how could we ever let go of love? It arrived shaking us, even breaking us down, to our cores, so wouldn’t it do the same once it departs? 

Loving is like knowing when and how you’ll die. Some will spend their life worrying, harnessing all their energy to make sure the day never comes. Others will do everything in their power to make sure each day up until then is unforgettable. And lastly, a few will do nothing but live peacefully through their days as if the very knowledge of it gave them life. 

How we process and respond to love informs how we give it. There’s one day devoted for us to speak in, even show off, our languages of love: Valentine’s Day. 

What’s it like to be in love on February 14th? Fancy dinners, ice skating, flowers, and chocolate that tastes like cardboard. A day devoted to you and yours, to reminisce over your “firsts.” You told us about your first kiss: 

“On a picnic blanket around twilight on the lawn at my California boarding school” 

“A mama bird feeding her baby” 

“Underneath a lunch table” 

“Post In-N-Out Burger in his backyard with his mom watching through window” 

“On a lifeguard chair at the beach during summer” 

“Cute , awkward, and braces”

“Very sloppy, but very fireworks”

  The thrill of new love consumes our peripherals, creating heart-shaped tunnel vision one only finds in Looney Tunes. Then there are those not in love, observing the others from a distance. For them, Valentine’s Day is less a reminder of love, and more so a spotlight on one’s lack or loss thereof. Especially during this isolating time, what people see on social media distorts their images of reality, for we don’t know what’s happening behind the scenes because we can’t see them anymore. 

This V-Day, all couples expressed their love as publicly as possible, flooding our feeds with plenty of PDA. Yet, don’t be fooled. 68% of people we polled are not currently in relationships. Even this category of “relationships” is somewhat misleading since it doesn’t mandate “my’s.” The loaded term relationship throws a heavy, somewhat overblown weight on Harvard students, so it makes sense that  71% of respondents oppose the school’s hookup culture. But, how did our culture behind hook-ups, relationships, and love become so hated? We got too possessive, too far on each extreme of loving, too fearful of living each day with the knowledge of death.

Ultimately, what we found showed us that in between the starts and ends of love, we swim in murky waters. We have no idea what we’re doing, and even when we take action, doubt sneaks in and grows: what if someone else could love me better? What if I could love someone else better? Thus, our non-committals, our premature breakups, our mindless teetering in the middle.

So, the Independent’s advice for the upcoming year? Remember there is no end to loving yourself. No one will ever love you better than you. To recognize and experience the love that’s always existed inside yourself—no matter how deeply buried—will allow you to share it back, fully, with unwavering belief. 

Arsh Dhillon ’23 (asekhon@college.harvard.edu) misses being your self-proclaimed sexpert…until April! 

Carli Cooperstein ’24 (carlicooperstein@college.harvard.edu) spent V-Day with her dear friends, Ben and Jerry.

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Check Out Some More Responses:

Are you currently in a relationship?
99 votes for NO (68%)
47 votes for YES (32%)

My first kiss went a little like this…
“[On] summer vacation”
“N/A”
“Jackass 2, a living room floor”
“Freshman dorm room, post first date”
“A mama bird feeding her baby”
“On a picnic blanket around twilight on the lawn at my California boarding school”
“During a game of truth or dare”
“Underneath a lunch table”
“On a lifeguard chair at the beach during summer”
“Kind of coerced because I just wanted to get it over with”
“cute , awkward, and braces”
“Very sloppy but very fireworks”
“Emmm…..What first kiss lmao”
“Post In N Out Burger in his backyard with his mom watching through window”

Harvard Hookup Culture?
29 votes for YES (29%)
70 votes for NO (71%)

If you’ve ever been in love, when did you know?
“Butterflies”
“Middle school”
“When it ended HAHA”
“When I realized my best friend was the one [to whom] I wanted to tell all my secrets and insecurities”
“When I realized I might lose her”
“Tingle in my toes”
“When they became my best friend”
“He put on a ridiculous hat, and I couldn’t stop laughing. I realized I’d been in love for a while.”
“When I realized I wanted to spend every minute of every day with the person”
“When talking to her superseded my interest in traveling lol”
“When they didnt love me back”
“When I thought about them more than I thought about myself”
“While writing in my journal and realising I’d written that I loved him”

Breakup?
9 votes for TEXT (9%)
91 votes for CALL (91%)

Driver’s License
28 votes for OLIVIA (88%)
4 votes for SABRINA (12%)

Send us your worst breakup story…
“I had to play a couple with my ex for a class assignment the day after we broke up”
“I thought I had been ghosted but he was actually in jail”
“I accidentally broke a charm he gave me, which was from his father who had passed away”

When was the last time you said “I love you?”
29 votes for RECENTLY (64%)
16 votes for IT’S BEEN A WHILE…. (36%)

…To who?
“A friend!”
“Friends”
“Myself”
“My dad”
“My best friend”
“My mom”
“My Mother”
“My boyfriend and my mom”
“My team”
“My bf”
“Boyfriend”
“My amazing boyfriend”
“My dog”
“Boyfriend”
“FWB”
“My family over facetime”

With whom do you wish you were spending Valentine’s Day?
“My best girl friends”
“Jude Law”
“A sexy sexy man”
“A significant other”
“My best friends and bf”
“A bf/guys I’m hooking up with, but I don’t have one lol”
“Arsh”
“Friends”

Describe love in one word:
“Home”
“Trader Joe’s frozen pad thai”
“Quiet”
“Comfortable”
“Unconditional”
“Pain”
“Fulfilling”
“Unconditional”
“Value”
“Warm”
“Complicated”
“Caring”
“Unstoppable”
“Weighted blanket”
“Growth”
“Dedication”
“Endless”
“Completeness”
“Freedom”
“Real”
“Everything”
“Home”
“Peace”
“Unstoppable”