Love.

When was the last time you heard someone tell a person that they love them? More than likely it was recently. Everyone tells at least one person that they love them, be it a family member, a friend, a partner, anyone. There are so many different  kinds of love, the love you feel for your family has always been there, you've grown up loving and caring for them, whereas the love you feel for friends and partners has to grow and develop, it takes time. Obviously the love you feel is different for each person, whilst the feelings you may have for a boyfriend or girlfriend are romantic, the feelings for a friend are generally platonic, you just enjoy their company and know that if they did not play such a significant part in your life it would be extremely different and possibly less enjoyable.

People often say that teenagers who are in relationships don't feel true love. I personally disagree with this view. It is unfair for people to class us as a whole collective group, saying that it is impossible for us to feel love at this age. I bet that when the majority of adults were teenagers they would have said that they were in love with whoever they may have been in a relationship with, so how is it different for us?

Of course, I don't believe that when you see 12/13 year old girls on facebook updating their status about how much they love the boy they are with, using a million little hearts and kisses at the end and commenting and all that jazz, a truly in love, generally these relationships tend to only last a few months tops and they seem to say that they love each other after only a few days. Yes, there is no set time that it takes to fall in love, but you can't know a person that well after only a few days to be in love with them. What about those annoying habits your partner has? Or the little things they do which brighten up your day? Or the things you notice about them, the order in which they do things that differs to other people (for example my boyfriend always puts socks on before trousers or a top)? These sort of things help you fall in love with someone.

It gets on my nerves when people say 'but you've only been together a couple of months, you can't be in love!'. I think that is quite ignorant as obviously, no one but the two people in the relationship know how they feel, and as I said before, there is no set time that it takes to fall in love. I know people who have been in relationships where they said 'I love you' after only a few short weeks and the relationships have turned out to be long term, then again there are people who have done the same and have only lasted a few months. I believe that when you feel it, you feel it. It doesn't matter if it's been a few weeks or even a few months, as long as you know how you feel that's all that is important.

Love develops over time, but sometimes you don't quite realise that it is there until something makes you notice it. I 100% believe the phrase absence makes the heart grow fonder. When I went away for a week back in February it was the longest I had gone without seeing Elliot or having a proper conversation with him. That week was when I realised that I was in love with him. Coincidentally, the exact same thing happened with him too and about a week after I got back he told me that he loved me and, obviously, I told him that I loved him too. That was just under two months into our relationship and, yes, some people have said that it was 'too quick' but for me it was the perfect time. We both felt it so why wait until we had been together for longer just to fit with what is believed to be societies idea of when it is right to say it? If everyone lived life in the way we are expected to, following set rules of time and everything else, the world would be such a boring place, and imagine the pressure of knowing that 'after 3 months and 17 days you are expected to say I love you to your partner'! What if you didn't love them? Would you still be expected to say it?

I think that in general, people shouldn't criticise others' use of the word love. Say it when you want to, to who you want to, and in which ever way you want to. It is your love, let it be heard the way you want, not the way everyone else wants.