The half life of 'I love you'

[Fridgemagnetman]

In the beginning was the word..

Whoah, hold on, fast forward a little bit.

As Jesus said heaven and Earth will pass away but my words will never pass away.

I have to assume he wasn't being arrogant. Perhaps it was the idea of words that was eternal.

I like to think I mean what I say. I can often take my time before I reply. Your word should have power, it should be dependable,like carbon. An element which takes millions of years to decay.
The measure of how long elements take to decay is called a half life .

Usually used to measure radioactive decay but it can also be the time required for any specified property (e.g., the concentration of a substance in the body) to decrease by half.

For example the half life of coffee is 4-6 hours.

What is the half life of I love you?

The meaning of the words I love you certainly hasn't changed since I said it last. I meant it. If nothing has changed, why should I have to say it again?

Do the feelings the words express decay over time?

And you know,while I was thinking all these things, my wife said ' I love you'

I was in the middle of mentally listing the half life of various elements in reverse order Vanadium, Uranium, Phenylethylamine, Nobelium,Francium,Diddlium,Dumptium, Bashfullium and Doc-ium,

A process that should not be interrupted.

I have learnt a valuable lesson though.

When you hear I love you , you have to say it back.

It's just easier.



What is the half life or your words?
Discussion of different half lives of elements :
https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=10511.0

 

[Gracey]

I seems that my words last longer than my husbands, or at least in my own mind they do.

I’m guessing my “I love you” is on par with strontium (90-28 years)
It’s great that I’m on the spectrum and he isn’t.
He’s told me he loves me and I believe him. I’m low maintenance that way, so to speak.

If our feelings are no longer love at the core of everything else, I’m certain we’ll take it from there.

By ‘everything else’ I mean the day to day maintenance of our investment in each other and self, in addition to the bickering, disagreements, difference of opinion, different perspective and so on.

Just because I may not say I love you very often doesn’t mean I don’t love him.

It just means nothing’s changed since the last time I said it.

Like I said, strontium.

 

[LucyPurrs]

I seems that my words last longer than my husbands, or at least in my own mind they do.

I’m guessing my “I love you” is on par with strontium (90-28 years)
It’s great that I’m on the spectrum and he isn’t.
He’s told me he loves me and I believe him. I’m low maintenance that way, so to speak.

If our feelings are no longer love at the core of everything else, I’m certain we’ll take it from there.

By ‘everything else’ I mean the day to day maintenance of our investment in each other and self, in addition to the bickering, disagreements, difference of opinion, different perspective and so on.

Just because I may not say I love you very often doesn’t mean I don’t love him.

It just means nothing’s changed since the last time I said it.

Like I said, strontium.

Just because I may not say I love you very often doesn’t mean I don’t love him.

It just means nothing’s changed since the last time I said it.

Yup this is what my "aspie" friend has said Gracey, so thank you for verifying it!!!

 

[Gracey]

Yup this is what my "aspie" friend has said Gracey, so thank you for verifying it!!!

You’re always welcome Lucy, no need for thanks.

Love will be at the very core of everything, even if it gets buried under a mountain of day to day; or perhaps more likely days on end/weeks of other priorities, interests, activities (for some Aspies)
It’s still there, even if it you can’t see it.
A bit like oxygen really.

 

[LucyPurrs]

You’re always welcome Lucy, no need for thanks.

Love will be at the very core of everything, even if it gets buried under a mountain of day to day; or perhaps more likely days on end/weeks of other priorities, interests, activities (for some Aspies)
It’s still there, even if it you can’t see it.
A bit like oxygen really.

That is so reassuring to know! Plus he shows me in subtle ways how much he cares. I might have overlooked those if he were an NT.

 

[Gracey]

Bashfullium and Docium Mr Fridge?

Snow-white-ium and sneezium in that list also?

 

[Lichi]

“I love you” is not a question. Why does it require a reply?

I never said these words to anyone but my ex, not even my parents and siblings. Before this I would use words like “I am fond of you” or “I’m happy to have you”. In fact when he professed his love to me describing who I was to him, after we were dating for a few months I still couldn’t say it back. I pretended I cried and told him I as happy he felt that way.

One day I looked at him and thought about how I felt for him. I identified this feeling as love, because it felt as if as long as I would exist this feeling for him will exist. Love is a feeling that is constant. You can’t unlove something once you have loved it. You can not like it anymore because it doesn’t fulfill the conditions you have to like something, but you cannot unfeel what you felt. Love has no conditions, hence it can’t be reversed. That day I told him I loved him. My love for him still exists even if I don’t like him anymore.

 

[Mia]

Perhaps when I first said 'I love you' to my then boyfriend and now husband it was based in an idealized version of those oft overused words. Which is coupled with words like romance, boyfriend, girlfriend, lovers, dating, marriage and the like. It was something I believed in, and thought was real.

After all, didn't the french courts begin the romantic traditions? Didn't the troubadours begin to write and sing songs of love? Didn't the poets? Didn't Neruda say:

“I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where,
I love you simply, without problems or pride:
I love you in this way because I don’t know any other way of loving.”

When relationships became about love, rather than land or the transfer of money and power, everything changed. The 'cult of love' predominated, and still does in the world. The ideas spread, yet it's a societal invention.

It's a way to keep society intact and functioning; romance, marriage, children, houses, cars, schooling. Young men who marry are less likely to start wars, they become immured to that life, as do young females.

Love is an idea and a way to keep people under society's control. Do I believe that love exists? I do care about people in my life, and more importantly love transforms into companionship, tolerance, attachment and understanding.

 

[Thinx]

This is a profound thread. I know what Lichi means, that's how I have been with people I have loved. I can and do leave, but there's still that way I feel connected to them. And being pretty darn old now it's been interesting to notice it doesn't seem to stop being the case. For me it's the same with strong friendships I had and really I m only thinking about a few people. In the immortal words of Paul Simon, Hearts and bones, oh they won't come undone...

However I can see where Mias coming from those are really interesting points, and as I read about and reflect on relationships a lot, particularly because of my work, I often do feel puzzled somehow about the insufficiency of love as a popular concept. And although we say it early on in a kind of idealistic phase I don't think it's easy to live the dream.

The reality of the work of relating and of being there for another person when actually they don't know how to do it either and there's a constant undertow of things we learned all wrong or muddled or differently in our earlier years...

Yes in terms of my personal experience I d say it's not quite like the half life of an element, because the love doesn't stop, even when it's not wanted or relevant or realistic to operationalise in the real world with that person.
It's never forgotten.

Now I want to say,
It's more like the half life of an elephant
Sorry...

 

[Fridgemagnetman]

Bashfullium and Docium Mr Fridge?

Snow-white-ium and sneezium in that list also?

.
Diddlium,Dumptium,

Are fine then?


Phenylethylamine, is also called the love drug and isn't an element.
Grubbium in honour of Brian Cant was another option. Comical elements perhaps

 

[SusanLR]

We must all be different elements, Fridge.

When I say something I mean it.
If I say I love you, no matter what happens in the course of the relationship, I always will. SO, I use those words carefully.
I remember the line from a movie in which the husband had done something the wife felt was unforgiveable:
"I hate you for what you have done, but, I will love you forever." She told him.

Then there are some who seem to use the term with little thought. " I love you. Now take off your pants."

Then there's the "I'll love you the rest of my life."
Until something else comes along and it becomes
"I've found someone else. I don't love you anymore."

These are romantic examples, but, the words can be so strong or so fickle in any type of relationship.

 

[Mary Anne]

My neighbor says I love to everyone, even me, and I hardly know her. I don’t know her! It bugs me, when I am doing yard work, to hear her with her friends and boyfriends. She is extremely popular! It’s unnerving.

I alsways was able to say “I love you” way more easily and frequently than my partners did. That made me feel so sad. Some did not say it at all ever, but I knew they did. There, I just knew it was getting good sex, and so to forget about expectations of something more. Others were alcoholics, and so I wondered if they truly did love me or it was the booze speaking. Oh it’s much better to be alone and not have to worry about all this.

 

[Fridgemagnetman]

Then there are some who seem to use the term with little thought. " I love you. Now take off your pants."

Less useful in Florida, as hardly anyone wears pants.

A firm and clear difference between British and American usage needed here.

 

[Gracey]

I think my family -husband, children demonstrated unconditional love first.

It goes beyond being very fond of, or caring very much about.

Particularly my children.

Should they ever need pieces of me to live, overcome illness, function.
They could have them, without question.

I wouldn’t consider it for anyone else.

They know this.
I don’t have to keep saying it to remind them.

 

[Fridgemagnetman]

They know this.
I don’t have to keep saying it to remind them

I applaud the sentiment ,no doubt.

I just keep imaging dinner conversations , where you keep mentioning it.

Little Tommy gets my liver, you're down for the eyeballs

''awww mammy, I wanted the eyeballs'

 

[FreeDiver]

I didn't know that love was a radioactive isotope?

 

[Streetwise]

In the beginning was the word..

Whoah, hold on, fast forward a little bit.

As Jesus said heaven and Earth will pass away but my words will never pass away.

I have to assume he wasn't being arrogant. Perhaps it was the idea of words that was eternal.

I like to think I mean what I say. I can often take my time before I reply. Your word should have power, it should be dependable,like carbon. An element which takes millions of years to decay.
The measure of how long elements take to decay is called a half life .

Usually used to measure radioactive decay but it can also be the time required for any specified property (e.g., the concentration of a substance in the body) to decrease by half.

For example the half life of coffee is 4-6 hours.

What is the half life of I love you?

The meaning of the words I love you certainly hasn't changed since I said it last. I meant it. If nothing has changed, why should I have to say it again?

Do the feelings the words express decay over time?

And you know,while I was thinking all these things, my wife said ' I love you'

I was in the middle of mentally listing the half life of various elements in reverse order Vanadium, Uranium, Phenylethylamine, Nobelium,Francium,Diddlium,Dumptium, Bashfullium and Doc-ium,

A process that should not be interrupted.

I have learnt a valuable lesson though.

When you hear I love you , you have to say it back.

It's just easier.



What is the half life or your words?
Discussion of different half lives of elements :
https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=10511.0

it depends on if you use them unconditionally,brotherly or erotically.
mine always felt brotherly I couldn't understand unconditional .

 

[Streetwise]

In the beginning was the word..

Whoah, hold on, fast forward a little bit.

As Jesus said heaven and Earth will pass away but my words will never pass away.

I have to assume he wasn't being arrogant. Perhaps it was the idea of words that was eternal.

I like to think I mean what I say. I can often take my time before I reply. Your word should have power, it should be dependable,like carbon. An element which takes millions of years to decay.
The measure of how long elements take to decay is called a half life .

Usually used to measure radioactive decay but it can also be the time required for any specified property (e.g., the concentration of a substance in the body) to decrease by half.

For example the half life of coffee is 4-6 hours.

What is the half life of I love you?

The meaning of the words I love you certainly hasn't changed since I said it last. I meant it. If nothing has changed, why should I have to say it again?

Do the feelings the words express decay over time?

And you know,while I was thinking all these things, my wife said ' I love you'

I was in the middle of mentally listing the half life of various elements in reverse order Vanadium, Uranium, Phenylethylamine, Nobelium,Francium,Diddlium,Dumptium, Bashfullium and Doc-ium,

A process that should not be interrupted.

I have learnt a valuable lesson though.

When you hear I love you , you have to say it back.

It's just easier.



What is the half life or your words?
Discussion of different half lives of elements :
https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=10511.0

if there is anyone that doesn't know anything about Judaism the scribes consider the word of Ha Shem(G~d) to be living ,if the parchment becomes damaged the letter or letters are buried ,treated like a living being .
The words in the Bible are considered to be living.

 

[Gracey]

I applaud the sentiment ,no doubt.

I just keep imaging dinner conversations , where you keep mentioning it.

Little Tommy gets my liver, you're down for the eyeballs

''awww mammy, I wanted the eyeballs'

They can share the corneas and lenses between themselves.


Tommy doesn’t get anything...
(There’s nobody called Tommy that I know of)

 

[Streetwise]

They can share the corneas and lenses between themselves.


Tommy doesn’t get anything...
(There’s nobody called Tommy that I know of)

I had to click funny as the conversation on nerved me