Why can't we say it?

[le_poete_mourant]

Fine, I'm going to get sappy and sentimental:

What is the adversity our culture has to saying "I love you"?  I read it mentioned in a book I was helping my editor friend with; the author believed that new couples in particular don't want to say this because it implies commitment.  I know even married couples have trouble saying it.  My girlfriend will only say, "I really like you."  Well, that's fine but...

Why is it that so many girls don't want to hear their guys tell them they love them.  I'd rather say it than not say it and have it be too late.  The way I see it is, it doesn't matter whether I love you two weeks or two months or two years from now, I love you now and that's what's important.  And besides that, there's a part of me that will always be attached to you, and will always remember the time we spend together with fondness.  Yet, they are afraid to hear it. 

And then there's parents and children.  I have always been afraid to tell my parents I love them.  (At this point, they drive me nuts a lot, and it's hard to say when I'm rolling my eyes.) But even when I was younger... is it we're afraid that if we say it, and then lose them, it might hurt even more? 

None of us really understand it, I guess.  Maybe that's it.  v

[penguinlover]

I really don't know how to answer this.  I am around people most of the time that love me, and say it.  My children tell us, and we tell them.  If you don't say it, people don't know you love them.  Saying it after they die is too late, so we need to make the effort to tell those we love now.  I guess I am fortunate to hear it so often.  I wasn't aware that people didn't share their love with each other anymore.
    Maybe being in a church helps.  We stress God's love for us, and our love for Him.  Maybe  that makes it easier. 

[arbisley]

I tell my parents I love them far too often! my brother too, but I've never told a girl (yet).

I don't know why I shouldn't, I find it surprising when in a family people are quite formal to each other! I also go to church, and it doesn't really seem to make that much difference to me, although I suppose it's a kind of background for us and morals etc.

[pianistimo]

i had to laugh last night because the dr phil show was on 'bitches.'  there were these three women and they thought men liked them better when they acted mean.  i was kinda watching this wide eyed (not really wanting to imitate - but just wondering).  this one lady - a guy sat down next to her and asked her politely 'what's your name?'  and she snaps back 'pregnant dog' and waves goodbye to him. 

(nils keeps changing the word - but that's ok - i understand)  thal uses the polite version too.
 smile.

i think women would get treated nicer if they didn't try to be so 'cool.'  you don't find this so much with older women who are willing to 'free fall' as dr. phil put it.  to put some trust in a guy.  but trust is hard won and hard broken.  i think trust is the issue. 

if your girlfriend is saying she likes you - it might be an even better indication that she loves you  - because she likes being with you and likes you for who you are and not what you can give her.  she just likes YOU.  take it as a compliment.  when she is ready (and she probably already feels it) she'll tell you she loves you.  keep telling her that you love her (not expecting it in return).  sometimes women come from various family backgrounds that didn't say it so much.  you are her 'new family' in a sense and she may learn from your example.

[arbisley]

I wasn't saying there was a girlfriend to say it to...

[pianistimo]

well, if you just meet a girl (and she has a great body) and you say 'i love you.'  it seems kinda trite.  but, if you become good friends and after a time of getting to know each other you say 'i think i'm beginning to love you'  it somehow sounds more 'real.'  you know what i mean?  women hate manipulation as much as men.  they want to hear it from the first day - but waiting for it makes it sound better.  just as you wouldn't just randomly give out jewelry the first time you met a woman (althoug biblically, didn't issac do that - i mean he saw rebecca and just handed her a bunch of jewelry).  well, anyway - that could be a way to meet the girl of your dreams.

[BoliverAllmon]

I don't have a problem saying it to my GF. I say it to her 30+ times a day, but I have a hard time saying it to other people. Kinda weird.

boliver

[Siberian Husky]

I honestly have no problem saying it, but i do recognize what you describe through observation and also experience. America, and most industrialized eurocentric countries base life on individualism and egocentrically caters to personal growth, rather than sociocentric building blocks of society. With this assumption, it almost seems as though saying "I love you,"  leaves one with a sense of volnerability, for it is man's greatest form of submissal in many ways; putting pride aside, devoting large portions of one's self to another means giving up self as a priority. I have observed this behavior in societys that differ in social structure, like i mentioned before;-sociocentric societies. In these societies, I Love You is a shared and richly embraced celebration of relationships between social aggregates and bleeds beyond the normality of relationships, not to say that it isnt of high value or importance in our cultural context, but "love" shares qualities of instability more so in our westernized world than in others simply because of our prerogatives for individual space and individual perception of self.

heterosexual (often related) older men hold hands with one another in China (a sociocentric society), which in something you would rarely if ever see here in the states. This perhaps indicates that there is less emphasis on where, how, or why love is circulating, and there lies heavier focus on just the love itself as an absolute form of intimacy that of course also varies by degree and quality according to the status of relationship.

Love in some cases, especially with most men, is in contrast with machismo and generally contradicts the traditional male drive. Men in love are often to be called "soft," by friends, of course in joking manners. Young people in relationships very seldomly express their love for their partner in public settings, and our society almost mandates a "lights off," cultural construction that enforces the eradication of public displays of any effection due to the awkwardness. For example, have you ever been in a relationship with someone, called them over the telephone while they were in close proximity to many of their friends or acquaintances and say "I Love You," and in return recieve a "You Too," instead of the full flegded reciprocated response. This may also be a vivid illustration of the awkwardness factor in relationship to the vulnurability theory i proposed earlier in this post.

Its almost as if one has to hang up one's outward persona on the coat rack in order to dive into the intimacy of any given relationship, as our society almost obligates us to become a two-faced society.


As far as a delay in the time one may say I Love You, or the resistance of reciprocating vocally those three little words, the answer may lie in the disposition of that specific person. Usually people who have a neurotic or phobia based paranoid characteristic take longer to warm up than others. On the other hand, people who have lacked intimate contact or relationships for a large portion of their lives may say "I Love You" after just one day of being with someone, because the unfamiliarly new and rewarding feelings of care between him/herself and another person are very impacting, or because there is a feeling of compensation for earlier voids.

I'v also heard of situations in which couples play the "hold out" game. In other words, each memeber of a relationship sees who indirectly withstands the longest without saying "I Love You," of course this may also be a product of the vulnurability factor. This is not to say that all or most people play mind or emotional games with one another; not at all, but have you ever encountered an experience (yourself or friends/family) in which someone was in a relationship with someone and the "I Love You" was introduced by one individual in the relationship, and the other person replies back with "I Love You Too" in almost sigh of relief that the wait is over.

There is a definite correlation between the exchange of intimacy, verbally or not, in relationships and our immediate cultural constructions in regards to relationships and how they should function in our society.

We are all products of circumstance, and it so happens that love, intimacy, dating, marriage, and the like are all very complex social institutions especially in todays age and in our society where everything is a commodity, so unfortunately, we are tied down to the parameters norms and folkways of the society we were brought up in.

It is said that according to westernized society, one is likely to run into several of his/her 'soulmates',..or "the one." Perhaps this is contributed to media imagery based on soulmate finding or the perfect image of "the one" which has been instilled in us since childhood. Westernized culture thrives of fantasy based on eternal romance and heavenly courtship in regards to relationships rather than just another social institution like in other societies. (I.E. Arranged Marriages in the Middle East)

We are very fickle people, and unfortunately the way we live our lives in context to our immediate spheres of influence including our westernized lifestyles and theories of mind perpetuate the complexity of seemingly very simple notions like love and care.

thank you for your time

[thalbergmad]

I never said "I love you" to my last girlfriend.

Perhaps because i did not and she was a bit of a cart horse.

Thal

[zheer]

  I've never truly been in love with any women, reason why those 2 words have never been spoken by me. I say keep it simple, keep it socio, economic, geo- politically compatible with some fun and laughter. 

[thalbergmad]

  those 2 words have never been spoken by me.

Its 3 words actually old chap.

Thal

[zheer]

Its 3 words actually old chap.

Thal