“Love” and “like” are two words that describe something special that is shared between two people.
Feelings that can be great when they are and hurt when they do. They strike in certain, inexplicable ways, yet only one strikes in such a way that could change your life. It is for this reason that love is not a synonym for like and is instead much deeper. Specifically, from my understanding, they vary in time and condition.
To begin with, liking someone is superficial, an initial stage that one goes through when there is a feeling of attraction. It is only the beginning, with depth, passion and care only in a formative stage where you could just be learning who and what it is that you ‘like’ or ‘will like’, just as in the context of starting a new relationship or having a crush.
For ‘love’, it is a powerful feeling that one does not know before or immediately after entering the official stage of a relationship, but rather something that one feels at some point beyond liking someone. This is a feeling that brings with it more care, concern and understanding, with the words “I love you” carrying much more weight than “I like you”. It signifies time, effort and struggle that one has gone through, especially with the time it took to get to that point.
Another difference is that love is unconditional, present regardless of the “buts” and “only ifs”. Liking someone may depend on how much you know about them or what the specific things that you like about them are. To love is when whatever that may be is removed, you love them regardless. Moreover, to like is to see perfection in the other, and to love is both knowing and seeing past imperfection. This extends to not only the love for a partner or spouse, but parental love as well. It is unconditional.
Although there may be an argument that these two words share similarities, they cannot be considered synonyms for each other. Love is a feeling that takes time in many ways while also being something that happens without conditions set in place. They are both special, but only love strikes in a way that can change one’s life.
Photo: Rui Pastorin
