C'est la Vie by Jennifer Babcock for August 03, 2010

Mona, you used that four-letter word too soon with Raoul. But there was a net loss of zero, because that’s all he was–a big Zero!

I think I know why

Three word sentence, I Love You followed by lifelong three word sentence You’re Right Dear. Somewhere in the decade of 39, I fell for it. Women are tricky.

^ no one forced you to sign on the dotted line…

In Raoul’s defense, they were teenagers, no? I remember being 16 and the girl I was dating started talking wedding bells. That so completely freaked me out that I saw her differently after that - and the relationship didn’t last a lot longer.

ut-oh…that’ll do it! Should’ve waited for him to say it first.

Mona became cynical about those three words. http://www.gocomics.com/cestlavie/2006/04/30/

Quickly followed by another four-letter word

“Oops”

Old Rita Rudner joke. Whena girl wants a guy to leave her alone say “I LOVE YOU”…..and he’ll leave skid marks.

There’s an old song about all the different things “I love you” can mean, but I don’t know the band or the title (you can imagine why simply googling “i love you lyrics” isn’t very helpful). It starts something like

A boy asks his mother “Do you love me?” And he means “Will you protect me?” The mother answers back “Yes I love you” And she means “You’ve been a good boy.”

It goes on to verses about a young man and a young woman, a couple at the altar, an old retired couple. In each case, the person asking “Do you love me?” means something quite different from the person who answers “Yes I love you.” I think the reason it scares so many people, Doc, is that it’s so hard to tell just WHAT the other person means when they say it (or what the other person is going to THINK I mean if I say it MYSELF). It’s such a powerful phrase, but it’s so ambiguous…

(If anyone can help me track down that song, I’d be grateful.)

Just this weekend, an article that was featured on the homepage for my att account was “How to decode what men say”, and one of the phrases translated was “I think I’m falling in love with you”, which means “I really WANT to say ‘I love you’, but I don’t want YOU to think I’m rushing into it.” Men can get their hearts broken by saying it too soon, too…

(One man-phrase they DIDN’T translate was “I’ll call you,” which of course means absolutely nothing. It’s the equivalent of a woman’s “Let’s be friends.”)

Here you go, professor Zoid: “As The Years Go By” (1970) by the Canadian group Mashmakhan

Thanks!

How long had they been dating when she sprang this little conversation ender?

Je t’adore? Jettison.