Love, Jealousy, & Envy

Semantics: in the study of language, semantics is concerned with the meaning of words, expressions and sentences, often in relation to reference and truth.

When I was in college I took a sociology course entitled, “Love Jealousy & Envy”. Contrary to the tawdry nature of the title, the class was extremely culturally informative and enlightening. In addition to learning that different people have different definitions of exactly “what love is”, I also learned that there is a very big difference between the concepts of jealousy and envy.

As a young co-ed, it was an eye-opener to learn that semantics often applies to the phrase, “I love you.” Love comes in a variety of flavors and different people legitimately mean different things when they say that phrase.

Some examples include:

- Best Friends Love: a warm and fuzzy emotion that usually occurs when a couple grows-up together, starts dating in school, and it is simply assumed that they will get married
- Passionate Love: some people feel that they are only in love when they feel a rush of lust and passion.
- Romantic Love: other people feel that they are in love only when they feel the need to write mushy poetry, talk constantly on the phone, send text messages several times a day and flowers on a daily basis.
- Jealousy Love: believe it or not, there are people who feel that they are not in love until they feel a rush of anger and jealousy when they see their significant other is simply talking to another person.

In addition, I learned that saying, “I love you” does not necessarily equal fidelity or monogamy. Yes, there are people who are legitimately in love with an individual (and even get married) but have absolutely no intention of remaining monogamous.

Needless to say, once I learned all this valuable information, I spent a lot more time asking my significant others lots of innocuous questions…just so that I could have a better idea of what love dialect they were speaking and to avoid uncomfortable miscommunications in the future.

Another interesting tidbit I learned was the difference between jealousy and envy.

The emotion of jealousy is based upon having a previously existing relationship with a person or thing. The emotion of envy, on the other hand, is based upon not having a previously existing relationship with a person or thing.

For example, Jennifer Aniston could feel jealousy towards Angelina Jolie…because Angelina Jolie had a baby with Jennifer’s ex-husband, Brad Pitt. However, the average tabloid reading individual cannot feel jealousy towards Angelina Jolie. Instead, they could only experience envy towards her involvement with Brad Pitt…because most tabloid readers do not have a pre-existing relationship with Mr. Pitt.

In another example: if I see a really nice car drive by, I could experience envy toward the driver. However, if the car that drove by used to be my really nice car (that I had to sell because I could no longer afford the payments)….then I could feel jealousy towards the driver.

Clear as mud?

More times than not, simple miscommunications and the lack of understanding between individuals cause the most harm.

To paraphrase Obi-Wan Kenobi, making the time to understand each other’s dialects is the first step towards a more harmonious world.