Love is not a word. It is behaviour.

Published: April 12, 2014 at 3:38am

Times of Malta reports:

However, in a third statement taken hours before he was charged in court, Mr Tanti said he loved Ms Zahra but he planned to end the relationship.

Love? I suppose this is a fresh variation on the time-honoured theme of ‘he beats me because he loves me and gets so jealous’ and ‘I love you so I want you all to myself and I will keep you locked up and living on hand-outs which I will generously give you as and when I see fit’ or ‘I love you so don’t mind me if I regularly insult you, talk down to you in front of others and rubbish practically everything you say and do’ and even ‘I love you but I must have sex with other people but you know that I love you because you’re the one I come back to’.

Words are meaningless. It’s the behaviour you’ve got to be looking at. You can tell whether a person loves somebody by the way he or she behaves towards that person, regardless of what they might say.

The very idea that Erin Tanti might have loved Lisa Marie Zahra is beyond risible. His behaviour towards her shows the opposite of love: hatred and contempt and, at the end, utter indifference.

Love is not a grown man pumping a schoolgirl full of pills which he bought for the express purpose, driving her to some cliffs at night and helping her over to her death in whatever way, while he has on him a passport, Eur2,500 in cash and a ticket out of the country.

That is hate. That is contempt. And now, what we are seeing is indifference.




11 Comments Comment

  1. Jozef says:

    I haven’t understood whether investigators found more than one ticket in his jacket pocket.

    If so, did they look for her passport?

    Given that the ticket/s were unusable.

    [Daphne – Her passport was in her home.]

    • Mister says:

      The million dollar question is:

      If he was so convinced that he wanted to end the relationship, had bought the tickets and had the cash in his pocket, why didn’t he just do that and leave everyone in peace?

      Why the devious plan to kill, steal and inflict pain on others?

      Is this some kind of plot which he read off a book and made it his own?

    • Mandy says:

      It was the air tickets, I believe, that were unusable. The ticket found in Erin Tanti’s jacket pocket was a Virtu Ferries one according to court testimony reports.

  2. Kevin says:

    It’s not love, it is sadistic cruelty.

  3. Manuel says:

    Love? He is more of an ephebophile rather than a ‘lover’.

  4. ohdaphne says:

    Should have given the article the title:’Daphne: On Love’ and posted it on Valentine’s day.

  5. MYL says:

    He loved her so much that he gave her a collection of suicide/death related poems for Valentine’s Day.

  6. M. Cassar says:

    How much he ‘loved’ her is amply demonstrated by his borrowing of the cauliflower/cabbage quote from Twain.

    Telling a person you ‘love’ they can’t improve, as well as telling a fifteen-year-old that exams are shit (when you yourself are a teacher) are fine examples of love indeed.

    This has got to be a parent’s worst nightmare because a groomer had the opportunity to craft his work in the actual classroom. Aside from having a monster in the home, this was the next most horrible scenario.

  7. Aunt Hetty says:

    His idea of ”love” was using an underage girl as a disposable commodity.

    What next? Blaming his predicament on the recent break-up of his family? When he’s 23 and not 13?

  8. H.P. Baxxter says:

    I hear the government will replace religious knowledge lessons with secular lessons in ethics. Bollocks to that. Just replace both by compulsory readings of Fromm.

  9. Nokkla says:

    Unbelievable…..did he really have the nerve to actually say that?? He “loved” Lisa Zahra? And listed her as “douche bag” on his mobile? Does he even know what love means?

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