Work Love

Last Monday I dryly said something snide and a co-worker I had only met a week earlier said, "Oh, Ellen, I love you." A few days later I heard the same declaration from my boss.

This made me uncomfortable, because in one week my female coworkers said "I love you" two hundred percent more often than my family ever said it when I was growing up. 

Sure, I ate it up quietly last week, but it seems to me an "I love you" comes pretty cheap these days. When did this start? Did it start with Leo Buscaglia and Princess Diana? Is it because they promoted hugs, but now we can't touch each other as freely, so we toss out "I love you" as casually as "Gesundheit?"

Mind you, I am all for not touching; I'd take a casual I love you over a hug any day. You can't ignore a hug. You can't skate past it with a question about deadlines. 

I suppose it's all a reflection of the more open, transparent culture we're trying to adopt at TeddyJ, and that's fine. I'll just need some time to reciprocate.

Comments

[KC]

I think this sort of "I love you" is a "I vastly enjoy your existence and your presence in my life is delightful" - more similar to a "I love coffee" kind of thing from someone who really loves coffee. Which is different from a celebrity muah muah I love every person I meet sort of thing.

(which is a pretty darn big compliment, honestly, but does not come with the duty/baggage of marital/family "I love you"s, I think?)(although may come with some impulses to help you or care for you or otherwise retain your you-ness at the company or in their life?)

[TheQueen]

KC - I think you are right. Still, it would have been good to have had coffee-level of love.

[KC]

You've got it now, anyway! (but yes, Small Ellen could have used those words quite a lot.)(I got a lot of "I love you, but I don't like you very much right now." - I am sure that I was told I was loved separately from that, but I don't remember any instances. Also being reassured that as a baby I was very wanted, which makes more sense now that I know my mom's history as a Surprise Baby, but for whatever reason, when I was a child, I interpreted this as "I wanted a baby so so much and I got *you* and it turns out you are a difficult child and why couldn't you match my preferences more?")(note: I *WAS* a difficult child. Extremely difficult! And my mom did better than her mom, which is good. But communication is still not totally successful...)

[TheQueen]

KC - difficult how? And yes, I don't think Grandceil was handing out any I love you s. My distaff side shows their love by showing up every day.

[KC]

Stubborn, messy, lied whenever convenient (I became actually-Christian as a late teen and that altered, but before that? Anything was fair game, which was very sticky esp. for the actually-sick-or-not question), had to have everything proved to me, did not trust my parents, did not believe in their understanding/common sense/knowledge in general [barring their specific specialties], and a weird mix of "don't care" and "you misunderstood something I told you while you were hanging up laundry so I will close off that avenue of communication for a decade+" and therefore: complicated and difficult.

I mean, basically, *I* really, really wouldn't want to have to parent me at any age beyond infant (by report, I was a very snuggly infant, although also croupy and also on a bizarre sleep schedule that I simply *wouldn't* change, so actually yeah, maybe I would also not want to deal with me as an infant!). I guess, I don't know how one could do a decent, non-miserable job parenting me from age 2 through 19 even *with* the inside scoop on what was going on in my head, therefore: difficult child.

(I was not, like, sadistic. And not furniture-destroying, aside from gnawing on my bunk bed wooden safety bar [why would one enjoy doing this? I do not know, but I did as an early grade-schooler...], but man. Difficult.)

[TheQueen]

KC - sounds familiar except the part about the laundry. That does sound difficult.