How Much Do You Love Me?

How Much Do You Love Me?

“I love you!”

These three simple words do wonders for a relationship, and I often say them to my wife as a sign of constant affection and love for her. However, at the most unpredictable moments, no matter what we are doing, my wife asks me:

“Do you love me?”

The answer needs to be direct, without hesitation or stuttering, gentle but firm enough, with the right and precise dosage of intonation, not too bold to show a false emotion, nor too weak to show I don’t care much. And I can’t exhale either, as it would sign boredom and tiredness. In essence, I would need a Ph.D. in Social Life to give her a perfect reply as she is very sensitive to these matters and captures even the slightest deviation from what she thinks I should say:

“Of course I do! Always!” She then smiles at me, content that I am paying attention to her.

By experience, I learned that there would be a moment of silence and then she would pose the next infallible question:

“How much?”

A gift, as small as it might be, on extraordinary dates or not, shows how much we care about our partner and goes a long way within the boundaries of the relationship.

How can I measure my love for her? What is the unit that measures it? Pounds, meters or liters? Is it in the Imperial or the Metric system? One thing I know is that she does not let herself to be measured concerning dollars when it comes to dealing with love. Honestly, I still don’t know her criteria, but I am trying…

The first time I heard the question, I didn’t understand the point and, between the irony and intrigue, I cheaply said:

“Two fingers?” and showed my two fingers together like when I ask a dosage of whiskey. She didn’t like it and became silent. I needed to correct the situation at once!

“Look!” and I stretched my arms open.

“Not enough!”, she said.

“Well, it might not be enough but these are the arms that hug you, and that proves my love for you!”. It worked because she smiled and kissed me.

Down the road, every time the “How much?” question would be pronounced, I would reply with something bigger. From stretched arms to a block size, to the height of the Everest (not the actual size but the one around one meter higher before the earthquake in Nepal, “Very funny!”, she said), to the Earth’s perimeter…

Warning

In the heat of the moment, never try to outsmart your partner by replying:

“I love you more than the distance to the Moon which is 384,400 km!”

“What?”

“Don’t get me wrong: it’s not the average; rather, the largest distance, called the apogee, or 405,696 km!”

You’ve got to believe me; it doesn’t work. Your partner might burst in laughs (or worse) and ruin the moment (or worse). It does ruin the moment (or worse).

So, I reached a point where the unknown size of the Universe would not be enough to describe my love for her. I also thought about mathematical formulas (the Aleph Zero set theory is a good start…), the number of atoms in a gram of gold or even the number of grains of sand in the longest beach in the world (for when you need to use this argument, it’s Praia do Casino Beach in Brazil. And, no, I don’t know how many grains of sand there are there).

“How much?”

Not knowing what to say anymore, I remembered a story about a checkerboard that my old man told me when I was a kid. I asked her:

“Please, give me a coin.” She was puzzled but handed me a coin that I put on the first square of the board.

“This is my love for you, as big as you want it to be.”

“Are you trying to buy my love?”, she said.

“No. That coin is not money but a token. It could be a button of your dress, a shoe, a minute that I spend talking with you, a kiss that I give you or anything else. It’s just a token, but a token of my love for you!” She smiled and kissed me.

Chocolate and strawberries are the lovers’ food! For no particular reason, without overdoing it, bring some to be enjoyed together!

“How much?”.

I then asked her two coins and placed on the second square of the board.

“See? Now, I love you twice as much as before. Can you imagine how much I mean by that?” Her face was radiant, and I got two kisses.

“How much?”

This time, I asked her four coins that I placed on the third square of the board.

“I still love you twice as much as before but, if you count the coins, you are going to see that I now love you seven times (4 + 2 + 1) more than I initially loved you!” She got the point, and further details will make you blush…

The checkerboard now sits there with only three squares filled with coins. My wife finally realized that, at this pace, she would run out of money very quickly and, by the middle of the board, all the joint money in the world would not be enough to fill the next square.

Translated to love, she also finally understood that my love for her would be more significant than anything else and any further discussion on the subject would be pointless… Or, does it?…

“How much?”

“Oh! No!” Do you have any suggestions to give me?