What We Talks About When We Talk About Love Analysis

“What We Talk About When We Talk About Love” is a widely known story on love and everybody’s different outlook on this emotion that we all define in our own unique ways. As we read through, we discover how love can be disguised, felt, and accepted from one person to the next.
This story is told through Nick, while sitting around drinking with his friends Mel and Terri, discussing the popular subject of love and what defines it. Mel was awestruck by an elderly couple he treated in the hospital and told everybody their story, it being clear to the reader how it affected him; he hoping to achieve the same level of love one day. “I mean, it was killing the old fart just because he couldn’t look at the fucking woman.” The climax was reached between the conversation about Terri’s ex-husband and the elderly couple; being that everybody by this point had had a passionate and strong opinion. The conclusion could be considered a matter of opinion, but satisfactory nonetheless; anybody can sit down and talk about love, but in the end nothing is really resolved.
Since fiction is a reflection of life, of course violence is incorporated to these stories. As Terri points out in her abusive marriage to Ed, “It may sound crazy to you, but it’s true just the same. People are different, Mel. Sure, sometimes he may have acted crazy. Okay. But he loved me. In his own way maybe, but he loved me. There was love there, Mel. Don’t say there wasn’t.” To most readers this is tragic, but it is a reality, and a lot of people would be able to relate, thus helping the reader to understand where Terri was coming from, or opening their eyes to an issue not thought upon