The L bomb

According to Taylor Swift, “when you’re 16 and somebody tells you they love you, you’re gonna believe them”.

Taylor, honey, I hope you never come to Africa. They would eat you alive.

Luckily this isn’t my first rodeo kids, and I’ve learned to accept certain realities and cultural differences that exist in the space between were I grew up and where I live today. It’s no easy feat, but by a slow (and at times painful) process of trial and error, I’ve gradually learned to adapt to a variety of things. Among these, is the use of the word “love”.

I now regularly refer to it as "The L Bomb”.

Now, I know what you might be thinking – that complaining about having people use this tiny but loaded little word (that is certainly a four letter word for a reason) must mean that I’ve run out of things to complain about or have been getting too much sun. Back home, we women writhe in solitude and debate in female circles over when will he finally say it (?!), convinced that it’s not only in the movies that men aren’t saying it simply because they’re men and they’re scared, and that eventually we will have our magical moment where he lets his barriers down and lets us in.

It’s a tortured existence we women live. Can’t live with em, can’t live without em.

But trust me when I tell you that if the scene plays out in opposite, it leaves us just as tortured. I mean, although more women should ensure that the next generation of women are aware that a man who uses that word after certain ‘activities’, really just means that he likes what you just did (spread the word ladies), what if that particular bomb gets dropped by someone you actually might like in a moment that might otherwise be completely appropriate if only it wasn’t about 6 months premature?

As a means of illustration, know that I have been on the receiving end of that word, sandwiched by an “I” and a “you” by two different guys in the past few weeks. To both I replied “no you don’t”. Oh, and I’m not counting the beach boy yesterday who followed me for a bit, or the vendor on the side of the road who mouthed it to me through the car window when I was waiting at a traffic light. Now, obviously the beach boy and the vendor where just taking their chances on a long shot, but the others expected me to seriously consider it as a plausible proclamation.

To me, thems’ fighting words.  My ‘no you don’ts’ are usually met with resistance. Often I’m referred to as ‘stubborn’ (which I obviously L-bomb hearing) and eventually I surrender or call a truce because my well worn arguments that what he means when he says it and what I understand when I hear it are different and are falling on deaf ears (who’s stubborn now?).

The problem I have is in the definition, and with how loaded the word is anyways. (And all that 'I've been hurt before' stuff.) Even if I know intellectually what he actually means, the word still fucks with my brain. I mean, doesn’t everyone want to be L-bombed and deserve to be L-bombed? Of course. But in due course, when everyone’s on the same page about it.

A wise and beautiful friend recently told me I was a ‘strong woman’ for not falling into the easy and exciting intoxication of possibility. The adjectives that came to my mind were more like ‘cautious’ and ‘possibly jaded’.

Still, the vague possibility that I may have already found The One I will L-bomb forever has a certain exhaling allure to it that keeps me trapped in a conflicted dichotomy whereby on the one hand I’m delivering a very stern and assured “no you don’t” speech, while simultaneously googling “Masai wedding’.

*sigh*

(Now write a song about THAT, Taylor)