My boyfriend is one of the most important people in my life. He is so genuinely kind and caring and stops at nothing to make sure there is always a smile on my face. The memories we have created are something that I will treasure for a lifetime. He is my absolute best friend-- but I do not love him.

Love is such a complicated word. As defined in the dictionary, love is "aprofoundlytender,passionateaffectionforanotherperson". Love is a such a special word, and should be used to describe the most exhilarating, breathtaking, and heartwarming feelings.

Unfortunately in this generation, the word love has really started to lose its true meaning. It is so easily thrown around and used in context that completely takes away its value. We often use the word to describe our feelings towards virtually inanimate things.

I love that shirt!

I love that flavor of ice cream!

I love going to the movies!

When you really think about it, love is a word that is used daily in our vocabulary- and probably used to describe over a handful of things throughout the day.

How can this word that we use to describe how we feel about such inanimate things, also be the same word we use to describe our passionate feelings towards the person we treasure the most? When I first started dating my boyfriend, I quickly threw the word around and didn't even think twice about it. I loved him, I knew I did. But as we continue to grow together and share special moments together, I realized that I really don't love him. Love isn't a special word anymore. To me, it no longer holds that value that it used to.

So I don't love my boyfriend. Love does not nearly begin to describe my feelings towards him, and I'm not sure there is any word out there that could. Hopefully one day love will gain back its value, but until then I'll stick to saying "I more than love you".