Beyond "I Love You"

Ah, Valentine’s Day. The annual capitalist charade when love is reduced to a frilly, prepackaged concept, as if genuine affection can be accurately expressed through the medium of a helium balloon that reads You’re My Everything while also being sold in a gas station next to Monster energy drinks.

We are expected—nay, compelled—to partake in this masquerade, this commodification of the most mystical, powerful, untamed force in the universe. Love! Love! That wild, pulsating, intangible energy that has been the muse of poets, the downfall of empires, and the primary reason Adele has sold so many records.

Yet here we are, thinking it can be captured in a Hallmark card with a picture of two cartoon cats holding paws.

We have been hoodwinked, my friends. Led astray by a marketing-industrial complex that insists real love only comes in one form: the nuclear, heteronormative, Instagram-friendly, two-person construct in which you have a “date night” and pretend to enjoy things like expensive oysters when, in reality, you’d be happier with a bag of chips and a nap.

But love is not limited to some prescribed narrative. Some of the deepest, most profound love on this planet has nothing to do with rose petals scattered across a four-star hotel bed.

Love Words from Around the World

There are words from many languages around the world that can expand our understanding of love beyond the clichés. Most have no direct English equivalent. Here are some gems.

Take guimi, the Chinese word for the kind of unbreakable, soul-welding love between best mates. The person who’s seen you cry over a kebab at 2 a.m. The one who’d fight your ex on your behalf (verbally, or physically, depending on how much tequila’s been consumed). That’s guimi—ferocious, undeniable, eternal.

Or kokoro, a Japanese word meaning heart, mind, and soul, all as one. The kind of connection where no words are needed. A glance, a silence, a shared understanding that transcends language or explanation. You don’t have to perform your love, you just know it’s there.

Then there’s aram, a Bengali word that speaks to the simple, effortless physical affection between friends and family. A shoulder to lean on, a hand on your back, the unconscious closeness of bodies that have nothing to prove but everything to offer.

And let’s not forget karuṇā, a Sanskrit word that embodies compassionate love—the kind that sees someone in all their mess, in all their absurdity and brilliance, and chooses to love them anyway. Not because of some fleeting passion or chemical reaction but because to love another person, wholly and without condition, is one of the great revolutionary acts of being alive.

Even in this whirlwind tour of love's linguistic playground, we can seen that while Valentine's Day in the U.S. tries to box love into heart-shaped chocolates and overpriced roses, the rest of the world is throwing a much wilder, more colorful party. Different cultures have their own distinctive words and expressions for love, each capturing nuances that often go unnoticed in typical Valentine's Day celebrations.

By embracing these diverse perspectives, we enrich our own understanding of love and move beyond the commercialized versions that are often presented to us. So, take a page from the world's dictionary and celebrate love in all its messy, beautiful, and untranslatable forms.