There’s a question that half of the world’s lovers fear but the other half loves to ask. The question is, “How much do you love me?” I’ve noticed that people prone to ask it usually wind up paired with partners who cringe at its approach.
It is, as Admiral Axkbar so aptly put it, a trap. To date, there’s been no answer unlikely to get you into trouble. Oh, sure, a small percentage of askers are happy keeping it a simple ritual of affection. These rare individuals are content to have their partners throw arms to maximum wingspan and say, “This much.” If you have such a mate, you’re a fortunate person indeed. Most want answers that will grow over time, so good luck increasing your reach.
Comparison answers are disasters in the making. “I love you more than rocky road ice cream,” may sound cute today, but one day, and you can bank on it, they’ll ask you for your dessert. And they’ll mean it!(Footnote 1)
My solution came to me the fifth or sixth time my then-girlfriend-now-wife asked the dreaded question and I replied, “What’s the unit of measurement?” For a half second I felt triumphant, having tossed a preemptive impossibility back into her lap. But triumph gave way to near panic when I realized that she just might come up with something that, like dinner with the Borgias or an IRS audit, would best be avoided. F’rinstance, “Compared to your last girlfriend.” So I scrambled ahead of the risk. I blurted, “Ten point three gazortin.”
If I’d had a chance to think it through, I’d have said “1.3 gazortin,” not to minimize the amount of love but to make a gazort (the singular form) a larger increment. Creating a reasonable sounding scale would have been much easier. But I’d made my unit and now must lie in it.
Here’s how it works. The gazort is a unit of romantic love. Romantic! It cannot measure how much you love a parent, child, best friend, puppy, or rocky road ice cream. That’s important to keep you out of trouble. Your use of the gazortin applies only to the him or her making the bedeviled inquiry and to no one else (or, if it does, your asker better never learn about it).
Ten gazortin (10 Gz) is the amount of love required to honestly and happily say, “I love you.” Daydreaming about someone starts at about 4 Gz, a crush at around 6, and you’re seriously smitten at 8.
From there, the difference in numbers starts to grow sorta like the Richter Scale. The difference between 10.2 and 10.4 Gz is exponentially greater than the difference between 10.0 and 10.2. Explain that to your beloved in the beginning and repeat as needed or you’ll need to keep track of millions, billions, trillions, zillions, and gajillions as anniversaries(Footnote 2) march past. A growth rate of 0.1 Gz/year is major league increasification, well beyond the growth rate of kudzu or the number wire hangers in the closet. A rate of 0.05/year is not to be snuz at, as it easily matches the achievement of any favorite happily-ever-after fictional couple.
In the spirit of Anders Celsius, Daniel Fahrenheit, Joshua Mile, and Joey Ounce (although more humble because I’m not attaching my name to it and don’t you dare do it for me!) I offer this unit to the world. Use it, share it, and may it spread contentment wider than you can spread your arms.
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1 If you’ve already committed this mistake, there’s an out that might help you once, maybe. When they say, “But you said you loved me more than rocky road ice cream (or whatever)” you answer, “I do. Rocky road ice cream doesn’t love you near as much as I do.” Good luck.
2 Not just wedding anniversaries either. Anniversaries of meeting, first date, first kiss, first time shopping for groceries together, that time the cat peed on Uncle Woodly’s suede shoes and Aunt Azalea had to be taken to the hospital after collapsing from laughing so hard, all of those and more could prompt a new ask and a need for a higher number.