“I love you.” Three little words that I’m afraid are losing value faster than the American dollar. I hear boyfriends and girlfriends say it in the halls. I hear it in movies. I hear it from those cheap stuffed bears that are really only appropriate for the current season.

In case you were wondering, I would never consider myself a romantic in any sense. I utterly loathe the so-called holiday of Valentine’s Day and it sickens me to see couples make out in the halls. In fact, the notion itself of making out makes me nauseous. No, I am not bitter.

Don’t get me wrong; love is a beautiful emotion and it inspires us to do bold (sometimes stupid) things. However, I feel like this sentence is losing its meaning. It’s almost like telling a person you love them is becoming little more than a compliment.

On the other hand, people sometimes treat the phrase like it has some kind of magic to it. When people get angry or begin to fall out of love altogether, they say “I love you” as if it’s going to fix things. When something bad happens in my home, my mom tells me she loves me—not necessarily to remind me but almost as if for her own self-assurance.

It’s funny, really, because they say hate is a strong word. Hate is the opposite of love, so does that mean love is a weak word? Because “I hate you” is being used just as much, and I don’t think the connotation of that phrase has lessened very much.

I’m not saying expressing love is bad in any way. However, I do think actions speak louder than words, and we should only tell people we love them when they need to hear it, not when we need to say it.