Love You Faux Ever
How do you know when a man's "I love you" is for real? I've had men express their love to me with great sincerity, only to vanish not long afterward. Are all men this fickle? Manipulative?
--Upset
Why does a man say "I love you"? Sometimes because "Look, a ferret in a top hat!" doesn't do much to get a woman into bed.
To parse whether a man's "I love you" is just the later-in-the-relationship version of "You related to Yoda? Because yodalicious," you need to consider context. The exact same statement can have different meanings depending on the context -- the situation, the circumstances in which it's made.
Not surprisingly, research by evolutionary social psychologist Joshua Ackerman and his colleagues suggests that men's I-love-yous "are likely to be more sincere (i.e., less colored by the goal of attaining initial sexual access) after sex has occurred." They also find that men, on average, start thinking about "confessing love" 97 days into a relationship -- so just over three months. Of course, an individual man may know sooner or take longer.
All in all, the best lie detector you probably have is context -- racking up a good bit of time and experiences with a man and seeing how well the walk matches the talk. You might even wait till the three-month benchmark before concluding that the I-love-yous are likely to be for real -- and aren't, say, the best possible air bag for what might come shortly afterward: "I got you a little something on my work trip. It requires a short course of antibiotics."
Are all men this fickle? Manipulative?
A woman accusing men of being manipulative is like water calling fish wet.
It might be true but...
FIDO at September 26, 2018 1:34 AM
Upset: How do you know when a man's "I love you" is for real?
Amy: Why does a man say "I love you"? Sometimes because "Look, a ferret in a top hat!" doesn't do much to get a woman into bed.
*
A broader question might be: why do men lie to women about how they feel about them? A man might not say "I love you" but still pretend to be interested in a serious relationship with a woman when he really isn't, or pretend to have stronger feelings about her than he actually does.
The answer is that women create the circumstances which give men the incentive to lie. If women were willing to have sex with a man simply because he wants sex (the way men are with women...and men are with other men) men would have no reason, no incentive to lie about the depth of their feelings. I'm not saying the lying is right, just stating why it happens.
JD at September 26, 2018 9:04 AM
A friend was complaining that her boyfriend would not say "I love you," even if explicitly asked to do so. The only exception, she said, was when they were in fact in the act of making love. Then, if asked, he would say the sacred words.
I suggested that she should not take too much comfort in the exception. When making love, I explained, men will say anything.
"He'd tell you he's the Easter Bunny if that's what he thinks you want to hear," I told her. The conversation rattled on from there.
A couple of weeks later, she related the following.
"We were in bed, making love. I said, 'Tell me you love me.' He said, 'I love you.' I said 'Tell me you're the Easter Bunny.' He stopped for a second, and said, 'I'm the Easter Bunny.' So I slapped him."
The poor guy probably still doesn't know what happened.
https://www.netfunny.com/rhf/jokes/98/Jul/ebunny.html
Slap happy at September 26, 2018 11:21 AM
Women initiate 70% of divorces. But it is men who are fickle.
A YouGov survey of nearly 1,000 U.S. adults last month found that 1 in 5 women (only dumped someone) said she had only ever been the one to end a long-term romantic relationship, compared with 1 in 14 men.
So 7% of men have only been the one who dumped someone, but 19% of women have only dumped someone.
In the same survey, a third of men and women reported having dumped, and being dumped. So there is that.
But data suggests women are almost three times more likely to be fickle.
Which doesn't help when it happens to you.
Granted, most dating drama happens in the 18-30 year old period (the Dumber Years) and frankly women can get away with it more at that age. There is always another man on tap when you are twenty four. Not necessarily another man you WANT, but another man available.
FIDO at September 27, 2018 1:41 AM
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