by Sandra Quevedo

Created on: April 14, 2009   Last Updated: April 15, 2009

Can you say "I love you" too much? That is a big fat NO for me. I believe it depends on the person's culture, their hormone levels and most importantly, their emotional upbringing. How can you understand something that is unbeknown to you?

Whether telling someone "I Love You" [too many times] is considered a learned behavior, or a chemical imbalance [perhaps caused by high levels of a natural

hormone called oxytocin, produced mainly in the hypothalamus, transmitting the same neural rewards as nicotine and cocaine] I believe loving something or someone is the true "Joie de Vive." And I don't plan to cheat myself.

As a South American (Ecuadorian) female of Spanish descend, telling someone you love them [a hundred times a day] is considered quite acceptable and very healthy emotional behavior. In my culture [Latino/Spanish] where "Love" is translated into passion in everything we do (people, food, dance, etc.) "My people" [as in family and friends] yearn to hear those words, and the entire world knows just how passionate we can be. My mother tells me "I Love you" every time we talk on the phone [and we do this several times] throughout the day. We kiss our friends, our boyfriends,our parents, and even the people we meet along the way and I'm just fine following tradition and most importantly my emotions.

Every morning when my life-partner [of eight years] walks out our bedroom door and heads off to work, I say honey..."I love you." Then maybe 45 minutes to an hour later, on my drive into the office, I will text him to say "I love you." During the course of our work day [and perhaps every other day,] I will e-mail him [on his blackberry ] to say "I Love you." And then of course, when he calls me during lunch breaks everyday, as soon as I hear his voice [and I am reminded of how I feel about him,] I will then again tell him "I Love you." This is how I feel [And who is counting?] Perhaps my oxytocin levels are just right!

My parents [who are still living] taught me that it was wonderful to say these words [anytime and every time] I felt the need to say them. They were also very good at teaching my brothers and I how to translate the feelings into emotion so I cried a lot too [my father, a DVM who specialized in cattle , traveled to the country-side every week, and I missed him while he was gone.] I learned early-on that this was okay for me.

I consider myself a "well-rounded, "no-non-sense" adult with no major traumas or emotional baggage in my life. Maybe this can be attributed to the fact that (at 45 years of age) I continue to watch my father whisper "I love you" into my mother's ear every single morning- - even now after almost 50 years of marriage. Incredible but true and I know how lucky I am to experience this!

On the flip side, my significant other (41yr old male) born and raised in North Carolina, can barely utter the words. After a few sleepless nights [mostly at the beginning of the relationship] now I finally understand that it is in his upbringing. He has lovingly helped me understand, he can't say as many times as I do. Why? Because he grew-up not hearing it! He tells me "we just did not say it [in my family,] we just knew we were loved"

So bottom line, if you feel it, don't miss out on saying it. I consider telling someone you love them a privilege and Love is the principal force behind human life, it moves the universe.

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