Isn't Julia Allison the woman who shares an it-must-be-performance-art blog with her boyfriend? She has a dating column? That can't be good.
I vote for the economist, especially #4. It's hard for me to imagine running into the problem the columnist describes, so my choice was a bit directed.
Given the amount of time we spent apart, "I miss you" for a while was like saying "I love you", such that I may have rolled over one night and given shivbunny a hug and told him I missed him. Fortunately he knows I'm a loon.
MR cracks me up.
And, of course, when to first say it and how often to say it thereafter are very different questions. First: when you're sure you mean it. Thereafter: whenever you think it.
Always,
Kahlil Gibran
I'm off to swim, bitches. Don't get my blog all sticky while I'm gone.
1 - Yeah, that's her. She's also Editor-At-Large at The Enquirer, I think. Thanks for pointing out how far my linking standards are slipping. But we needed a post, dammit!
I wonder whether people have stronger memories of the first time they said "I love you" to someone (with romantic intent, I mean), or the first time someone said it to them.
she broached the topic with, "I think I'm falling in love with you." Crickets. Five days later, she packed up her things (gutsy!). Two weeks after that, he confessed that he did love her. Guess what? She'd already moved on--to someone more emotionally available.
She didn't love him.
After my bad bad college relationship, in which "I love you" was pretty much a weapon, I don't really ever say it except to friends and family. Max and I had a brief treacly couple of weeks six months in during which we said it, but never again after that. And that brief treacly time was spurred by a lot of unpleasant thoughts about what assholes we both were, and "I love you" was a way of resigning ourselves to that mutual acceptance of assholishness.
I guess I can't really hear it from a romantic partner without hearing it as an expression of doubt or as a prophylactic against Bad Feelings.
Never. If you ever say it, you'll just get hurt.
--Your friendly grouch, tweedledopey
For at least one value of "The L Word", it is a good idea to make it clear before the first date.
I wonder whether people have stronger memories of the first time they said "I love you" to someone (with romantic intent, I mean), or the first time someone said it to them.
I don't remember either, though I know who my interlocutor must have been in both instances.
Toward the end of the second bottle of wine.
I've got to say it pretty soon after I start thinking it regularly. Otherwise, I start living in fear that I'm going to blurt it out at some inopportune moment.
Otherwise, I start living in fear that I'm going to blurt it out at some inopportune moment.
Been there, blurted that. But the time I did, it went well. (Well, other things eventually went badly, but saying "I love you", unplanned and endorphin-driven though it was, wasn't a mistake.)
pretty soon after I start thinking it regularly
So go ahead and tell me already, Blume. You wouldn't want to go blurting it out at UnfoggeDCon.
I stand firmly behind the wise words of a Japanese sex manual we own, which explains that "woman is an irrational creature. A man reasons that, having once said 'I love you,' the statement is good unless he says that he hates her. But a woman wants to hear it again and again."
I was going to wait to tell you on your birthday!
"Sure, you love the person but this is economics and we think at the margin. Why did you say "I love you" right now rather than two minutes ago?"
The Economist is so damn sexy hott.
18: so the true secret of sexual dimorphism is finally revealed: Women have an `love you' meter, and men a toggle switch?
This seems like something that can cause bonus stress in a relationship for no good reason. For example, someone with AWB's aversion to the phrase (and there are plenty of such people) coupled with someone who will take its absence as a reason to think that something's wrong - of course they'd say so if they love you, right?
but this is economics and we think at the margin.
The accurate translation is `... and we think marginally', I suspect.
I was going to wait to tell you on your birthday!
Crap. Well, at least the wait is very nearly over.
Depends what you mean by "I love you", doesn't it?
If you mean, "I want to spend eternity with you in a rose covered cottage with bluebirds flying round the door", then never might be a good time.
If you mean, "I'm going to throw an embarrassing scene if don't defer to my least whim", there's a case that your partner is better off warned.
If you mean, "You're a really important friend to me at the moment, and also I'd quite like to fuck you a lot", then that's fine - any time is as good as another.
Bear in mind that the odds against you both understanding it as meaning the same thing at the same time are probably worse than the Euro-lottery.
"You're a really important friend to me at the moment, and also I'd quite like to fuck you a lot"
You silver-tongued devil, you.
On an otherwise bleak day, 15 made me laff.
I was dopey high-school male:
She says, "I think I love you."
My response- "I think so too."
But she knew what I really meant.
I think this 'wait 2 months to say "i love you'" is a terrible idea. I try to say it to a girl soon the first time meeting her, and thereafter at random unpredictable but frequent intervals. It should be the immediate feeling, not a description of how many limbs one would sacrifice for the other person.
Everybody I love you, everybody I do
Though your heart is an answer
I need your love to get thru
When I tell you I love you
You can believe that it's true
(oh yes it is now)
I try to say it to a girl soon the first time meeting her, and thereafter at random unpredictable but frequent intervals like whenever she catches me stalking her.
Before telling somebody you love them, you should test the waters by proclaiming that you ♥ them.
I have developed a simple but fairly reliable checklist which allows you to work out if a particular piece of "pop-economics" writing, applying the economists' reasoning to everyday situations is likely to be meretricious, superficial horseshit or not. It goes thus:
1. Yes it is.
Scored against this checklist, I find the economists' answer wanting.
4: Don't get my blog all sticky
The best time to say "I love you" is immediately after one has gotten a loved one's blog all sticky.
Is that more or less significant than saying you <3 them?
A college friend of mine hooked up with a girl who was really into him, but for whom he had no especially strong feelings. She pauses mid-fellatio, looks up, and says "I love you." He pats her on the head and says "You're great, too." She bites his member as hard as she can, then storms out.
Stop right there!
I gotta know right now!
Before we go any further--!
Do you love me?
Will you love me forever?
Do you need me?
Will you never leave me?
Will you make me so happy for the rest of my life?
Will you take me away and will you make me your wife?
Do you love me!?
Will you love me forever!?
Do you need me!?
Will you never leave me!?
Will you make me so happy for the rest of my life!?
Will you take me away and will you make me your wife!?
I gotta know right now
Before we go any further
Do you love me!!!?
Will you love me forever!!!?
Let me sleep on it
Baby, baby let me sleep on it
Let me sleep on it
And I'll give you my answer in the morning
35: You can't be that cavalier. If enough economists convince us that it's normal to think in terms of marginal utility and sunk costs when out on a date or writing up the list of chores, then they will indeed create a milieu in which it actually does become normal because so many people are thinking that way that it would be foolhardy to assume that the people around us are not thinking that way.
They succeeded in making us all helplessly unable to put forth any counterargument to "Multinational corporations have a responsibility to their shareholders in the short term, and no other responsibility", which would have been ridiculous 50 years ago.
Before telling somebody you love them, you should test the waters by proclaiming that you ♥ them.
And where does "I wuv you" fit into the chronology, apo?
Maybe it's just a reflection of my cold, black heart, but I've never felt much significance in a use of the phrase.
OT:
Hooray for being the X in a (Y > 1/2X + 7) encounter.
"I love you"
"If you really loved me, you'd have fixed that dripping faucet sometime in the last 15 years."
"You're right, I never loved you at all, but just used you and hung around outa spite and sloth."
"I knew it all along, you prick."
they will indeed create a milieu in which it actually does become normal because so many people are thinking that way that it would be foolhardy to assume that the people around us are not thinking that way
Damn straight. What we really need are a bunch of academic chemists dominating the discourse so that dating columns will start talking about "dipole attraction" and "eutectic temperatures".
Isn't Julia Allison the woman who shares an it-must-be-performance-art blog with her boyfriend? She has a dating column? That can't be good.
You're just hating because she's a fellow Tr/evian
We instantly formed a covalent bond, IYKWIMAITYD.
The Mime: [after Steve and David give him and a couple whose car has broken down a lift to a night club they are going to] Let me tell you about love. Love disappears, baby! Every time I've been broke, the babe's been off like a prom dress.
Female co-passenger: May be it's the women you choose?
The Mime: Hey! Maybe I've been hurt! And maybe I've been dumped!
And now I'm praying for the end of time,
to hurry up and arrive,
cause if I gotta spend another minute with you
I don't think that I could really survive.
What we really need are a bunch of academic chemists dominating the discourse so that dating columns will start talking about "dipole attraction" and "eutectic temperatures".
And "first ionization energy". I hope to someday see a stand-up comic make jokes along the lines of:
Cesium : My whore of an ex-wife :: Electron : Bra
Not to mention relationships modeled as potential wells.
Uh, shouldn't that be
Cesium : Electron :: My whore of an ex-wife : Bra
I'm going to blurt it out at some inopportune moment.
Scenario: Laying in post-coital bliss, for the first time, with the second woman I'd been with (also the second time in post-coital bliss). I thought I heard her say "I love you." It was confusing, as we had just met, but I was inexperienced in the ways of love, and decided to play it safe by saying "I love you too." It was as if I'd dumped a bucket of ice water over her head; I had of course heard wrong.
All this time I thought it was really stupid of me, but now I see I was being economically rational (#1, #6).
So odd! In my experience, men have been the ones to do much of the "I love you"-ing. Often far, far too early in the relationship for it to be plausible. I'm all, "oh, we slept together once and we've been out for coffee a few times and walked around together a lot; you do not love me". It's really difficult to know how to respond, especially when you like someone quite a lot. Few things make my heart sink in a sinkier fashion than realizing that someone I respect, someone I'm interested in...well, that they're such a fool as to believe that they love someone they barely know, and/or so lacking in self-control as to pop out with such a silly statement. Of course, you can't really tell someone "and don't say that you love me until at least six months into the relationship", since that comes across as perhaps a little egotistical.
Re 53: And yet I'm virtually certain that I've never slept with mano negra.
blurt it out at some inopportune moment
My boyfriend did this like three times, each time being like "pretend I didn't say that, ok?" After the third time, it was like dude, you love me, I'm awesome. I'm cool with that.
they're such a fool as to believe that they love someone they barely know
Well, or they mean something different by it than you would if you said it. Like OFE says, the possible meanings are many and varied.
OT: I can't believe `procrastoworking' has no hits on google. Just saying.
Cesium : Electron :: My whore of an ex-wife : Bra
"Man, I'm never going out with her again. She's got the electron affinity of an alkaline earth metal."
54: That's why I cultivate the emotionality of an icicle in a computer science class. No woman's going to make fun of my emotional neediness over brunch with her slutty friends.
OT: I can't believe `procrastoworking' has no hits on google. Just saying.
Well, now it does. As does 'delurko-crastinating,' incidentally.
In a lot of cases, "I love you" means about as much as saying "How are you?" You might mean it sincerely, but you might not.
60: Sure they are; they'll just make it up if needed.
61: Yeah, thought I'd fix that while I was at it. Delurko-crastinating is pleasingly precise, but doesn't exactly roll off the tongue.
60: I'm sure she'll think of something else to mock, don't worry.
57: But I don't want to go out with someone who thinks he needs to cozen me all the time, either. Even if all he means is "Oh, maybe Frowner will sleep with me again if I get all sentimental", well, that seems to argue for a gross misjudgement of my character. I mean, in all cases of premature declaration, I did continue to date the people in question. But I coulda done without the qualms.
Ooh, pwned by 63. Or maybe everyone just knows the horrible truth about Flippanter.
59- Wait, what? (were you 50?) Have analogies been banned so long that people are constructing them wrong?
But I don't want to go out with someone who thinks he needs to cozen me all the time, either. Even if all he means is "Oh, maybe Frowner will sleep with me again if I get all sentimental", well, that seems to argue for a gross misjudgement of my character.
Or maybe his definition of "I love you" is "I like you more than any other woman right now and am happy to find out that dating you was a good idea", and that was true at the time.
No, I was 50.
I always forget how to construct those analogies, since both ways are logical. I guess I did it in the less intuitive way.
53: Showing deep sincerity like that is often a winner, yes.
69: But why not say that? Seriously, I'd much, much rather hear "I like you a lot" than "I love you"...particularly at that point in the relationship. "I like you a lot" can be very romantic in an understated way, you know.
Perhaps my character has just been shaped too much by the patriarchy, but I would never tell a fellow that I loved him early on, no matter what I felt. I'd assume that kind of thing would make him run screaming into the night.
66: Nah, I was thinking of someone honestly saying "I love you" when they meant something like OFE's "I like you a whole lot and want to fuck you". 'Fond of + Attracted to' doesn't mean 'love' for lots of people, but someone who thinks it does isn't using the words obviously wrongly.
I think 71 is a bit harsh. What would you have said in response?
"Well, I don't. Although theoretically I could."
"You're just trolling aren't you."
"Really? Why?"
I'd assume that kind of thing would make him run screaming into the night.
Not a bad assumption. Ok, not screaming into the night, but I'd always though premature iloveyouation would raise a question mark (uh-oh. clingy nightmare?) with the recipient regardless of gender direction...
I do think "say it when you mean it" is a pretty good rule. With something like that, there's no sense papering over some incompatibility with the person you're saying it to, and you certainly shouldn't be saying because you think the other person would like to hear it. Say it when you mean it, and let the chips fall where they may.
What would you have said in response?
hmmm I missed that. What did you say?
or perhaps: did you just tell me you loved me?
premature iloveyouation
What comes first, tutoying or iloveyouing?
77 has a caveat: If you mean it after 1 1/3 dates, you possibly need therapy.
I love this thread, but I'm not in love with it.
What comes first, tutoying or iloveyouing?
The common pattern when English-language movies are dubbed into French is that they vousvoyer until the first sex, and start to tutoyer one another beginning with the "they wake up the next morning" shot.
"I've heard 'em all. 'I like you as a friend.' 'I think we should see other people.' 'I no speak English...' 'I'm married to the sea.' 'I don't want to kill you, but I will.' "
Is it too soon for me to say that I ♥ Glenn Greenwald? Or merely too unoriginal.
81: I know what you mean. I've been reading other threads for some time now. The key is keeping your RSS feed at work, so they never know.
The key is keeping your RSS feed at work, so they never know
But inevitably you accidentally mention something you read in another thread, and then the whole house of cards comes crashing down.
But inevitably you accidentally mention something you read in another thread, and then the whole house of cards comes crashing down.
And the whole aftermath will play out in the comment threads.
And the whole aftermath will play out in the comment threads.
Will no one think of the lurkers?
What comes first, tutoying or iloveyouing?
Best be careful in a foreign tongue. A friend got a little note from her then-boyfriend which read only "Je tem," and it helped convince her that he was, in fact, a twit.
"Sure, I understand. That other thread has over 800 comments, and I have fewer than 100. Of course your eye is going to wander... Damn you! I wish you would have at least read something cheap and meaningless like the Atrios comments! Why HER??? You're probably a pervert that reads the Making Light comment threads when I'm not around!"
Have you talked Mrs. Ruprecht into attending UnfoggeDCon yet, Knecht? Tell her I'll make out with her if she does. But not if you're into that kind of thing.
"Look, I'm a modern woman. I understand you're going to browse. I understand you're going to lurk. But commenting???"
94: Well 90 -> the majority of comments 200 to 800+ at "the other thread". So Flip is so busted.
96. Ok, I admit I commented, but I didn't reach comity.
Best be careful in a foreign tongue.
A friend of mine (American) was dating an American girl in a French environment when they were both in their early 20s. They found that they could communicate much more openly about their relationship (and especially about sex) when speaking French, since it put a little bit of psychological distance between them and their words. In his retelling, she was willing to be much naughtier in bed if he spoke to her in French ("Vas-y penche toi!").
I do think "say it when you mean it" is a pretty good rule. With something like that, there's no sense papering over some incompatibility with the person you're saying it to, and you certainly shouldn't be saying because you think the other person would like to hear it. Say it when you mean it, and let the chips fall where they may.
Ogged the Reticent makes this comment?
An ancillary question is have more people said it to you than you have to them or vice versa?
And the ability to blame everything on language difficulties allowed them to save face when the two dozen hens and accompanying barrel of honey were delivered to their apartment. "But, I thought you said you wanted..."
Say it when you mean it, and let the chips fall where they may.
Doesn't this amount to "Don't sweat it"? Absent bad faith, no one says it when they don't mean it, and worrying too much about what "mean it" means seems self-defeating. If "I love you" is make or break, it was going to break anyway.
Have you talked Mrs. Ruprecht into attending UnfoggeDCon yet, Knecht?
I'm still working on it. My hopes were set back considerably when she saw the flickr pic of BitchPhD tongue-wrestling with apo.
I misused the French language and called my gf ma petite pamplemousse (play on mon chou) until I told her that I loved her.
I love you, Will. And not just for your nice tits.
I love you, Will. And not just for your nice tits.
If I was gay, I would want to date a fastidious, dark skinned, skinny guy like you. We could go swimming together and be so happy.
allowed them to save face when the two dozen hens and accompanying barrel of honey were delivered to their apartment
"I said 'Tu ne veux pas? Quel boulet.'"
"Oh, I thought you said "Miel. Poulet."
Overheard by husband #1 in a movie theatre: Young male to young female: 'I love you, baby, no shit!'
The Biophysicist is not prone to use of the L word. However, when a man gives a woman a lovely Makita router set for Squidmas, she knows he loves her. And when he takes her forcibly to the ER, despite her vociferous, albeit fever-induced, protests, thereby saving her life. And when he makes sure that the tires on her car are at the correct pressure...
103: Is `orders of magnitude more' a bad answer?
ugh, i really hate this sort of delicate signaling way of communicating. if someone says something that skeeves you, maybe you should ask what they mean?
plus making people realize early that i'm going to say crazy shit with alarming frequency allows for much more fun.
Thinking about this, I tend to assimilate to the habits of my SO, although I, personally, prefer to say it more often. I was walking into the building at work one day, finishing up a call with the ex and after I was done the guy next to me said "That must be nice," and I had to think for half a second before I realized that I'd said "I love you, too" as I'd gotten off the phone.
KR--You can tell Mrs. Recht that I am wholesomeness herself, unlike B. It also seems to me that much of the debauchery is of the intellectual kind. I heard that the cops came, but it was because an argument about philosophy got too loud.
Mrs. Recht would be quite an amusing name.
Yes, it would be, Blume. Stupid brain fart.
And the tongue-rassling was conducted solely for the camera--it's not like I took the picture to document an event already taking place.
Although B is likely to be on the Just-Turned-40-But-I-Still-Got-It-Dammit prowl.
Mrs. Recht would be quite an amusing name.
There used to be a Judge Recht, which is even better.
He is remembered for a landmark decision that bears his name (in which he ruled that funding education through local property taxes is an unconstitutionally inequitable funding mechanism), which might have started a revolution in educational policy but turned out to be a false dawn.
I promise I won't French kiss your husband, Mrs. Ruprecht.
I think I've never said ILY to anyone except close relatives and my wife. I don't know when I started with her but it probably took a few months together. Days we spend together I must say it three, four times though.
115: wait, what? Was she your ex at the time?
I've said it to & heard it from one person (romantically, that is). I can't actually remember who said it first--I do remember thinking that he was leading up to the first "I love you" when in fact he was leading up to the first: "um, so, can we have sex one of these days?"
I say it way more now, because I am just demonstrative like that.
I took a long time to say "I love you" to Snark, but once I started I became fairly profligate. If we're in different parts of the house and I happen to think of him, I will call it out. Probably I say it a dozen times a day at least.
L* is a very dangerous word. After nearly 47 years my father has yet to say it to me. I figure he is working up to it. No rush to judgment and such.
Er, 127 not to 126, but to the thread in general.
126: Still hard to say how you're going to turn out, I guess.
125 describes my wife and me so accurately it's eerie.
I'll say in our defense that we're aware of how nauseatingly cute we are.
Probably I say it a dozen times a day at least.
You'll feel the fool when you run out. That word doesn't grow on trees, y'know.
132: Worse, she'll spur love hyper-inflation. Soon the word won't be enough, and each will have to follow up with actions.
No good can come of this.
Was she your ex at the time?
No. But I've said it to and heard it from exes.
125 is good. Say it up, people!
120 -- You're thinking of Will. B is in the not-yet-turned-40 set.
130. True. He might have to disown me someday and how would it look having used the L* word. Far better not to retract it.
I do feel sorry for the robot. Sadly for me, I can feel a bit enjoyably mean when I say it to him. The whole emotions thing makes him very uncomfortable.
The idea of meeting many of you, particularly after this thread, is very enticing to me.
The bottle neck here is child care logistics: Knecht's solution of putting gold fish crackers in the automatic cat feeder and setting "Angelina Ballerina" on the continuous play mode, while not without it's merits, just doesn't sit well with me.
Plus, there is the very attractive option of being the only girl in Portland...
If you don't go, Fleur & Knecht, I won't feel quite as bad about missing it.
I'm not sure if that's an argument for or against, really.
That's the spirit, Fleur. We love you here, and we're not afraid to say it.
135: I don't have the search-fu to find it, but I thought the textual evidence was such that she would turn between now and then?
A friend of mine (American) was dating an American girl in a French environment when they were both in their early 20s. They found that they could communicate much more openly about their relationship (and especially about sex) when speaking French, since it put a little bit of psychological distance between them and their words. In his retelling, she was willing to be much naughtier in bed if he spoke to her in French ("Vas-y penche
I heard this once happened to a German youth and some eastern tramp once, too. Prenez garde, il est un peu fragile. C'est à visser, tu sais.
Although B is likely to be on the Just-Turned-40-But-I-Still-Got-It-Dammit prowl.
B isn't going to be there, IIRC.
...and I lo-o-ove you.
Thus the thread returns full circle.
That's the spirit, Fleur. We love you here, and we're not afraid to say it.
"here" = Portland?
147: Yes. I'm taking the liberty to speak for Emerson and NPH before they get here.
my people say i love you once in a lifetime
i like you is different though
deducing minds wondering what happen box-filling skilsl
142: That was before she knew that I could make it. I'm sure she'll swing it now.
126. This is was feature (or a bug) with fathers of a certain generation. I'm quite sure mine never said it, but he made it perfectly clear that he did in fact love me.
154: Right. I had to get up in the morning at ten o'clock at night half an hour before I went to bed, drink a cup of sulphuric acid, work twenty-nine hours a day down at the mill, and pay the mill owner for permission to come to work, and when we got home, our Dad would kill us and dance about on our graves singing Hallelujah.
He was a hard man ... but fair.
155: My father had a similar ethos. The problem was, he was a programmer, so us kids didn't buy it. Then we met my Mom. She was a writer. Fucked us up real good, she did, when the occasion warranted it, then we were as good as the situation allowed.