I Like You vs I Love You

The word “Like” is used at the level of physical body, mind, intellect or ego and the word “Love” at the level of soul. 

Examples are “I like this shirt”; “I like this car”; “I like his personality”; “I like his intelligence” etc. 

The word “Love” is expressed for a person (I love you) or for Food (I love this food).  In ancient Vedic philosophy human body and food shares the same consciousness. 

Therefore, food is often symbolized as ‘I love my food’ e.g. I love mangoes or I love apples, etc.

When you are trying to say yes or no to a matrimonial offer, a question is often asked to you, “Do you like him or do you love him?”  Like is at a superficial level and 

Love is at a deeper level.

In an arranged marriage, Love may take time to develop but in a love marriage, by the time you get married you are in love with each other.  One should never marry at the stage of liking in love marriage. 

In Vedic philosophy, there are stages of Love and they are Euphoria, Reaction, Adjustment, Liking and Love.  When you get married, which is an arranged one, you are in a phase of Euphoria, which is the period of honeymoon.  Once the honeymoon is over, you start reacting to each other’s habits then over a period of time you start getting adjusted as there is no other alternative.  This phase is followed by the phase of liking and then the last phase of loving and this liking-loving phase may take up to 7 years. Then is the 7-year itch as it is described. 

The initial phase of infatuation involves adrenaline and nor adrenaline chemicals and the later phase of love involves endorphins. 

When you lose a partner at the stage of liking the mourning period is less but when your loved one departs at the stage of love, the mourning period may be prolonged and even may be forever.

The word “Love” is also sometimes used for materialistic things.  Some people say ‘I love my car’ or ‘I love my computer’.  This terminology is used for people who from their heart love a materialistic object. But more often the word “Like” is used for materialistic things other than food and human being. 

Besides human beings and food, the world “Love” is often used for pet animals and that is expected as they also have consciousness.  

To summarize, for anything which has consciousness we use the word “Love” and for anything else we use the word “Like”.