I read one of those internet platitudes today,

“The most memorable people in your life will be the ones who loved you when you weren’t very lovable.”

Yes, OK, that’s nice and so simplistic!

My problem is that it came from someone who really hasn’t been very lovable, someone who is now feeling the need of love. That’s OK, except that she has been unwilling to listen to anything that has been said, that she doesn’t agree with.

My problem with the platitude is that it says nothing about what it means to love someone. It suggests, to me, that it’s about you doing what the person wants, not what’s best for them. In my world it is often the case that ‘love hurts’ or that what’s needed is ‘tough love’.

Any parent will attest to this. I have sat and listened to the anguish of a mother with a drug-addicted son who knew that she had no option but to lock her son out of her house. I have listened to the anguish of a husband dealing with an alcoholic wife when he knew he had to disable her car to prevent her killing others. I have had my own sons pleading with me to take the car keys away from their mother, for the same reason.

Was this love? I think so. Was this what the other person wanted? I think not.

I commented on facebook,

“Yes… but what does it mean to love someone? If you tell them the truth, as you see it, and they don’t like it, is that loving them? If you tell them what they want to hear, but it doesn’t serve them, is that loving them? The person ‘being loved’ is sometimes the last one to understand when someone is really loving them!”

What do you think?