Let’s start the week out with one that kind of caught me a little by surprise. And after almost a year and a half of doing this, the fact that that’s still possible to surprise me is surprising enough. Eh, then again, it wouldn’t surprise me if something REALLY surprising was…ok, let’s let it go.
A reader calling herself “Firecrackers” for reasons known only to her (though I can assure you that I’m creating weird and hilarious hypothetical explanations in my head right now just to entertain myself) wants to know — Do men love as deeply as women do? Let’s find out what she’s talking about, and then manslate this one into oblivion, shall we?
Dear Jeff,
I love this site! You’ve made me laugh so hard I had tears in my eyes. Thanks!!
My question is this: what do men actually feel when they say ‘I love you” (in the awesome and rare cases when they actually mean it, I mean . . . not in the cases when they’re just trying to calm you down, or get you into bed)? Do men actually LOVE, as deeply as women do? I guess this is along the same lines as the “do men ever get heartbroken?” question. This may sound like a dumb question, but it is an honest one — I have truly been wondering!
Thanks!
Dear Firecrackers,
First of all, I have to admit that I burst out laughing at your list of reasons why a man might tell you he loves you if he doesn’t mean it. Sadly, though, I wasn’t laughing because you were wrong — both of them do happen. At least I think they both do. (I know the first one happens because…er….a “friend” of mine did that one time. Nice guy, totally not a jerk or anything. I swear. Seriously. You’d all like him a lot. Sigh.)
Though I must comment that I think telling a woman you love her if your only intention is to sleep with her is not only a.) cruel, but b.) ineffective womanizing since he’s definitely NOT leaving himself a clear exit strategy. I’d guess that you won’t find too many experienced Players using the L word to get into your pants. I bet more than a few Romantics, however. Hell, some of those guys don’t even KNOW when they’re not in love.
SO, DO MEN LOVE?
Short answer? Same as the “do men get heartbroken like women do” question — Absolutely.
I am just about as crazy-in-love with my newly enwifened lady fair, it’s embarrassing. And I mean that literally. Our life together involves a huge amount of content so embarrassingly gooey and icky and lovey and/or dovey that we have basically sworn each other to near total secrecy about any of the specifics of our relationship. I’m a 100% equal partner in the kookiness.
Suffice it to say, yes, men do love. Or at least one of us does. I have to believe that there are more of us out there, though we don’t totally talk about it with each other too often.
Which begs the question:
WHY DON’T YOU KNOW THAT MEN ACTUALLY LOVE?
Well, again, same deal as the “do men get heartbroken” thing. because as a gender, we don’t totally talk about it all the time, or necessarily show it how you’d expect. I guess now that I’m thinking about it, I’m not all that stunned that you might not know that men actually do love.
See, here’s the thing. Many men (speaking very, very generally, as always) don’t seem to talk about their feelings as often as their counterparts (that’s women, if you’re keeping score at home) seem to. Any minds blown out there? No? Didn’t think so.
There are a couple of reasons for this, such as:
- NOT VERY MANLY, IS IT? Not even if you talk about your feelings in a deep voice. For whatever reason, it’s not considered especially virile to speak about your feelings, whether they be happy/sad/lovey, etc. Don’t know why this is, exactly. And of course, it hasn’t always been this way. Dudes in Shakespeare’s time used to compete with each other by way of writing love sonnets to their ladies. Can you imagine those guys being very popular nowadays? Especially dressed the way they did, with the ruffley collar dealie? Not likely. A man may have to learn to trust that, while in many situations lovey-doveyness is considered “hilarious,” when he’s with you, it’s not only “not going to be made fun of,” but “to be encouraged.”
- FEELINGS-TO-WORDS EXCHANGE RATE NOT SO FAVORABLE: Because we aren’t really trained to believe that talking about our feelings is manly, we’re not always that great at it. Think about trying to convert 729 centimeters into inches in your head. Exactly. It’s messy, it’s not very accurate, and oh what’s the point, forget it! Many men need some time to get used to this, and with a wide margin of error. Some men never are very psyched about expressing this stuff.
- DO WE KNOW WE REALLY MEAN IT? Related to the last one, if a dude isn’t 100% sure that his words and his feelings are sympatico, well, he might be a little reluctant to drop the L bomb. Why? Because like an A or H bomb, once you drop that L bomb, boy, that puppy stays dropped. Boy, does it. That’s one of those weapons-grade words you don’t want to fool with unless you’re sure.
- DIFF’RENT STROKES: This is another biggie — he might be expressing love in a way that doesn’t ring any bells with how YOU might express it. Think of a cat bringing you a dead mouse. I mean, that cat doesn’t know you don’t love dead mice. HE sure does, why wouldn’t you? And all he’s got to give you is a dead mouse. So you might have to learn what each man’s particular dead mouse is. Of course, feel free to use a metaphor that isn’t disgusting, if that helps you.
But as I say, all of that is just to explain why you might not see the kind of evidence of love that you’re looking for. The main answer again, Firecrackers, is yes, yes, and yes.
What’s your experience, miladies? Do men love? And how can you tell?
If you liked that, you might also like...
Комментарии
Отправить комментарий