I was watching a movie a little while back about a gay teenager who tried to explain to her mother that she “loves differently.” I had to stop for a second and process this. I find this to be impossible, really.
How can somebody “love differently?” You say potato, I say…potato. How many ways are there to love, really? If you romantically love a man or a woman, it’s still love. It’s not different, the feelings and emotions are still the same. I am certain that any gay or lesbian person would say that they feel very strongly for their partners they love or have loved and that they have felt the same emotions of love as everyone else. There is no “love differently,” there is just love. Love is love is love. Is love. There is no reason why we need to call it something else to describe it when referring to gay people or bi people or straight people.
I don’t know why the term bothered me so much. I have a few very good friends who are gay and they have never expressed love in a way different from the way that straight people do. The idea of a man loving a man or a woman loving a woman or a man and woman loving each other is all the same to me. Everyone’s heart breaks the same, everyone’s heart loves in the same way, everyone feels the same sensations when in love. With who does not change that.
I don’t know what “gay love” feels like, as I personally am straight. But I’m pretty sure that love is love and that’s it. We all love differently and we all love the same. I don’t think it matters the genders of the main characters in any love story.
Potato…potato.
