The other day my housemate told me that the previous weekend she had plucked up the courage to tell her boyfriend that she was in love with him. However, she quickly added that she wasn't ready yet to say "I love you."

This confused me greatly. I asked her what exactly it was she had told him.

"I said to him, "I'm madly in love with you.""

"Not, "I love you"?"

"God, no! I'm not ready to say that yet!"

What followed was a very lengthy and annoying conversation about the differences between saying "I love you" and "I'm in love with you". Apparently all my life I have been completely oblivious to the fact that the latter is much less intense.

I'm still not entirely convinced that there is a difference between the two at all, but it's hard to argue the semantics of amour with an opponent who thought she was Pippi Longstocking as a child and as an adult models herself on Ann of Green Gables.