I’ve been with my boyfriend for eight months. We’re always together, the chemistry’s great and we laugh a lot but he’s still not said Those Three Words. I’ve almost blurted out “I love you” but I don’t want to freak him out. Is he in love with me or not?
Men are a baffling breed indeed.
Inundated with romantic comedies, love ballads and endless Facebook romance memes our vision of love is quite the perverted fairytale. What a man in love looks like is exemplified in numerous infamous love songs.
Percy Sledge informs us that When a Man Loves a Woman “if she is bad he can’t see it” and he will “sleep out in the rain if that’s the way she says it ought to be.” Well ladies, to each her own. In my opinion, a man who sleeps in the rain because someone told him to is horrifyingly lacking in dignity, obsessed and mentally ill. Doormats just don’t light my fire.
In Every Breath You Take, Sting pleads “can’t you see you belong to me?” and vows that “Every move you make… Every claim you stake I’ll be watching you.” Not feeling the love here, either. Possessively crazed psycho-stalker, definitely. Again this does not provoke my passion though a promptly served restraining order will.
So how does one know if a man is in love? Acts of obsession or possession definitely don’t indicate love. Men do, however, communicate more through actions than words. They tend to look at what they say as a more binding promise or commitment. No one relishes vulnerability, and the fear of rejection can paralyze any man. Not to give men an easy out, but let’s be fair – men and women are very different creatures.
While a conversation about the love status of your relationship lies somewhere in your future, for now look at what he is doing. A man in love gives a woman his time, she is his priority and his gaze rarely leaves her. He seeks to know her passions, hobbies and life dreams. He’s affectionate and inspired by her interactions with others and especially by how others respond in her presence. When separated he maintains connection.
It’s been said that a man falls in love with a woman in her absence rather than her presence.