‘Je mange le poisson’ = I am eating the fish
‘Je me lave’ = I wash myself
The verb ‘manquer’ means ‘to miss’, or ‘to lack’, so you’d think that ‘ Je te manque’ means ‘I miss you’, right?
The verb ‘manquer’ behaves differently in French because it has a subtly different meaning. Instead of saying ‘I miss you’, in French you have to say…
‘Tu me manques’ - You are missing from me.
In English, ‘to miss’ someone is essentially a selfish feeling - ‘I miss you’ means that I have a feeling about you, but you’re not involved. In French, the person who is being missed is the person who has an active role in the action:
Je te manque = You miss me (I am missing from you)
The verb can only exist by connecting two parts that are no longer a whole, by expressing the part that is gone. I think it expresses the whole feeling of ‘missing’ someone in such a beautiful and accurate way.
And you, you spectacular unicorn, that’s how I feel about you. I don’t want to tell you ‘I miss you’, as if it’s the same as ‘I watch you’, ‘I like you’, ‘I eat you’, as if you are a passive thing that has no part in it. Like wanting you to come back to England because ‘I miss you’ is entirely selfish - ‘I miss you’ doesn’t take into account any of your feelings or goals or aims, only mine.
I don’t mean this to be depressing or guilt-laden, quite the opposite; I just want to make the point that when I say ‘I miss you’, it’s not because I am having a feeling that is about you. It’s because I am having a feeling that can only exist because I am a part of you, and you are a part of me. And we will always be part of each other.
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