When “I like you” is too little and “I love you” is too much

It happens more often than we admit. Two people meet in a meeting room, at a conference, over dinner, in an airport lounge, on a train, or in the strange intimacy of travel where strangers sometimes speak more honestly than friends.

The conversation begins ordinarily. A question is asked. A story is shared. A joke lands gently. Something in the eyes changes. It is not always desire. It is not always romance. It is not necessarily the beginning of an affair. It may simply be recognition.

One human being suddenly feels seen by another. There is a light that sometimes appears in the eyes before the mind has found words. A softness. The love light. A curiosity. A quiet warmth. This is no flirting my readers.

And then, almost immediately, the walls rise. Some walls are made of marriage. Some of age. Some of reputation. Some of fear. Some of propriety. Some of the memory of earlier mistakes. Some of simple good sense. The heart may be reckless for a moment, but life is not. Life has homes, spouses, children, loyalties, histories, and consequences.

So people become careful. They lower their eyes. They change the subject. They laugh too loudly. They become formal. They say “good to meet you” when what they mean is something much more tender. They say “let us stay in touch” when both know that staying in touch may not be wise. They leave with a small ache, and sometimes with a strange gratitude.

But here is the question that troubles me. Is it a sin to feel this warmth? Is it a betrayal merely to recognise beauty in another person? Is it wrong to say, with dignity and restraint, “I like you”? We have made the word “love” so heavy that even affection has begun to feel guilty.

To say “I love you” is often understood as a claim, an invitation, a crossing. It asks for something, or appears to. It disturbs arrangements. It creates expectation. But “I like you” can be different. It can be a soft light, not a burning desire. Perhaps language fails us most in these moments.

To say “I love you” may be excessive. To say “I like you” may be insufficient. To say nothing may feel dishonest. So the heart looks for quieter ways to speak. It remembers a preference. “This reminded me of you.” It asks, “Did you reach safely?” It keeps aside the better chair. It laughs at a joke that was not particularly funny, only because the person who made it mattered. It lingers for a second at departure, not long enough to be improper, but long enough to be understood. These are the tiny courtesies through which affection disguises itself as manners.

This is where Paul Simon’s song Something So Right comes close to the feeling I am trying to describe. In that song, Paul speaks of a lovelight in the eyes. What interests me is not the certainty of love, but the difficulty created when something feels quietly right. If the feeling were crude, careless, or obviously wrong, one could dismiss it easily. But tenderness is harder to dismiss. It does not arrive with guilt written on its face. It arrives softly, almost innocently, and asks only to be recognised. Such moments are not abstract. They arrive wearing ordinary clothes.

Consider a corporate chief travelling with his executive assistant. They have crossed three cities in four days. Airports, hotel lobbies, boardrooms, delayed flights, rushed dinners, speeches rewritten in cars, medicines remembered, tempers managed, silences protected. She knows the part of him that others rarely see: the fatigue behind the confidence, the anxiety before a speech, the irritation he hides from clients, the loneliness that sometimes follows applause.

They are waiting at an airport lounge after a difficult meeting. It is late. Their flight is delayed again.

“You should eat something,” she says.

“I am not hungry.”

“You always say that when you are tired.”

He looks at her and smiles. “You have become dangerous,” he says. “You know too much”

“Well I know your calendar, your speeches, your blood pressure tablets, and your dislike for overcooked pasta. That is not too much.”

“It is more than most people know.”  He says.

She pauses. “That is because most people meet you after you have arranged yourself.”

“And you?”

“I meet you before you have arranged yourself.”

For a moment, neither of them speaks. The lounge is noisy, but something has become quiet between them.

He says, “There are days when I think you understand me without my saying anything.”

She looks away, not in rejection, but in caution. “That is my job.”

“No,” he says softly. “Not all of it.”

He understands what she is doing. She is not denying the warmth. She is protecting it from becoming something else.

The announcement for boarding comes. They stand.

He picks up his bag. She picks up the files. The old order returns, but not fully. Something has passed between them and decided not to become an event.

At the gate, he says, “I am glad you travel with me.” She replies, “I am glad you trust me.”

He wants to say more. She knows he wants to say more. Perhaps she wants to hear it. Perhaps she is afraid of hearing it. Perhaps both are true.

So she adds, almost lightly, “And now please don’t forget your phone in the pouch in the front of the chair again.”

They board the aircraft. He takes the window seat she had quietly chosen for him. She takes the aisle across. Not beside him. Across. Near enough to understand, far enough to remember.

Nothing has happened. And yet something has. The conversation has crossed “like” and leaned toward “love”, but it has not crossed into possession. It has allowed tenderness to breathe, and then asked it to sit quietly. It has honoured the love light without using it.

Friends, have you ever experienced such a moment? A conversation that stayed longer than it should have. A glance that said too much and therefore said nothing. A small act of care that was more intimate than a declaration. A person who saw a part of you that others did not see.

A moment when “I like you” would have been too little, and “I love you” would have been too much. Did you step back? Did the other person? Did both of you silently build the wall together? And when you think of it now, years later perhaps, does it still tingle a little?

If it does, perhaps it is not because something was left incomplete. Perhaps it is because something was kept intact. That is the beauty of human life. These are the moments to remember.

Some moments are meant only to remind us that the heart is still capable of recognition, even when life asks it to remain disciplined.

Maybe the most graceful ending is not “I love you”, or even “I like you”, but simply this:

“I am glad our paths crossed.”

It says enough. It honours the light. And it leaves the wall standing

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Paul Simon’s Something So Right, from his 1973 album There Goes Rhymin’ Simon, is not simply a love song about certainty. It is about the unease that comes when love is gentle, healing, and unexpectedly right. The song seems to say that human beings are often more prepared for disappointment than for tenderness. When someone brings calm, care, and a “lovelight” into one’s eyes, the heart does not always surrender easily; it hesitates, mistrusts, or stands behind old walls. That is why the song fits this reflection. It is not only about being loved, but about the difficulty of receiving something beautiful without knowing what to do with it. Listen the song on Spotify https://open.spotify.com/track/4AAtVj0B8232DhtXXI5oHR