Love versus Like: Lines Getting Blurred

Truth is that the line between love and like is very blurred for us, isn't it? Our use of the terms does not help much. How many times have you said that you love pizza? With these definitions in mind, does that even make sense? How can you love pizza?
Or how about this one: how often do we in the same paragraph or sentence say that we love pizza (or something like that) and say that we love our parents, husband, or girlfriend? What are we saying with that? That in our eyes, pizza is on the same level of our significant other, or that our significant other is on the same level as pizza?
Another is that we say that we like this person to indicate romantic interest. That's it? You like them and you're considering a life-altering relationship? How is liking someone make that same person different from other friends, other people we would say we like?
Our popular culture seems to use these terms interchangeably, as if they are the same thing, just at varying levels. Both are essentially defined as emotions by our culture. We think like this, don't we? I mean, we first like someone, then, overtime, we come to love them. How many TV shows develop whole episodes around the concept of saying "I love you" as if it is the next emotional level.
Now there is a difference between saying I like you and I love you and actually meaning it because they are dealing with two separate ideas. But our culture has conditioned us to think of love and like as different points on a scale, rather than understanding that they are different scales.
A major part of this problem is that love and like tend to go hand in hand. We love people we like. An example of this would be me and my friends. I love them and would do anything for them, regardless of how they treat me. But I also like them. I enjoy hanging out with them and being with them; such an experience is pleasurable. They make me think, push me to grow, are funny, smart, and generally a fun bunch to hang with. One fact does not negate the other, they simply coexist. However, in our minds, we run the two together as if they are the same thing.
However, one can love another without liking them and vice-versa. Growing up, my sister and I most certainly did not like each other. Actually, we almost never played together, despite being only a year and half apart, and when we were forced to be together, we picked on each other non-stop. Drove my parents crazy, I have no doubt. However, we loved each other. If the one was in trouble, the other was there to back-up the first in a heartbeat.
I remember the one time that Lindsay and I were in the same classroom. She was running around the room and slammed head first into a table. She split her head open and was very dazed. Who was the first person there to help and see if she was okay? Me. Another time we were actually getting along and playing in my room. I stepped out for a moment and Lindsay fell of my bunk bed and broke her arm. Who was the first one there? Me, despite the fact that both my parents were closer to my room. Now this got me in trouble because my mother instantly blamed me for the incident, of which, for once, I was innocent of any wrong doing.
Point is that despite our constant bickering and disdain for the others presence, when the chips were down, we were there for each other. Never did we want the other to really, truly suffer. Why? Because we loved each other, even if we did not like the other. As time has gone on and we have matured, both of us have come to actually like the other person too.
The opposite is true as well, liking someone without loving them. This is something that we are much more familiar with: the concept of the fair weather friend. You know what I'm talking about, the person whose company you enjoy, but little more than that. If something terrible happens to them, you don't particularly feel obligated to give them assistance if it is inconvenient. All of us have had such a friend, and all of us have been such a friend.
Point is that while love and like are often found together (friends, spouses, children, and other such people), they are still different concepts. This leads to another reason that we get the two ideas mixed up in our heads: we don't really love.
Love, as repeatedly pointed out, is based in being selfless with another person. We are sinful, and at the core of being sinful is I, me, being selfish. Therefore, being selfless goes against our programming. So love, while we can theorize about it, is nigh impossible to actually put into practice. Ever notice that the people you are willing to sacrifice the most for are the people that you like the best? Ever think that there might be a reason for that? It is because we don't truly love others, we are simply more willing to give the more a person gives us joy. Hence, we love those people we like.
Again, love and like are different things. Again, they often run together. Love is the giving of you completely to another person. Like is the selfish desire for another person because of what they give us.
And that is what I mean when I say that God likes us.