There are several classes of I love yous, and subsequently I have several classes of reactions to them.
"I love you," says the family member who hasn't talked to me for more than an hour, total, in the last 20 years. They'll say it in the same way my mother did: leadingly, in order to hear a reciprocation. My response: "Really. Describe me."
There's the romantic, ostensibly the most rewarding I love you. And it certainly can be. It can make me positively dizzy. All too often, though, I end up wondering if that, too, was phony. My wondering-rate is an appalling 50%. Curiously, I still love 100% of the women I've ever said it to, even the frauds. Or at least I still love their fraudulent versions.
There's the feint. "Love ya!" says the ambiguous friend of the opposite sex, testing the waters. That "a" is crucial. It gives them deniability. If I deflect with a speech about what our friendship means to me, they can say, "No no no, you misunderstood. Jesus, John. How irresistible do you think you are?" And if I say "I love you, too" and move in for a kiss, she can deflect with a speech about what our friendship means to her.
The robo-iloveyou comes from my friends' kids. The toddler will be performing his bedtime ritual, brushing his teeth and smooching his parents good night.
"I love you," he says to Mom.
"I love you too."
Smooch.
"I love you," he says to Dad.
"I love you too."
Smooch.
"I love you," he says to me, whom he just met an hour earlier.
"Why?"
The cool, detached I love you is one I've often used, myself. You use it when your buddy throws a glass beer bottle at Superfan, or when the waitress brings you a bourbon that you did not order. It's not a particularly lasting romance, but for that immediate moment, you mean it with all your heart.
The pity I love you is the absolute worst. You have a disease, or your mom just died, or you were just ruthlessly dumped and you spend every minute of every day staring at the knife drawer. And a friend or, worse, a co-worker, not knowing what else to do about your depression, says "I love you" for the first time. It is at this moment that you realize that in addition to your original problem, you're now a whimpering, helpless loser on the brink. Get medicated.
My favorite I love you, bar none, is from a protege. This is no one with whom you're romantically entangled. This is no one contractually bound to say it. This is a promising human being whom you've taken under your wing and helped along, for no other reward than seeing them succeed in life. You've invested a lot of yourself in them, and sometimes a bond like no other forms. It's not paternal, fraternal, professional, or rivalrous, although it has elements of all those relationships. But man, when the kid sheepishly tells me they love me, it means more than all the other genres combined. It's pure. No one has an agenda. This one, it was earned. For all its potency, though, it does have its limits.
"John's a good name," I'll tell the newly pregnant protege.
"You know, really, it's not," she'll roll her eyes.