Believe it or not, men are the ones most likely to say “I love you” first, not women. So found a team of researchers in a study published in the SAGE Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, at least when it comes to heterosexual relationships. The question of the gender of who says it first is obviously moot when it comes to same sex couples.
It took men, on average, just 69 days into a relationship to say the words I love you,” the study found. With women, it took 77 days.
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This contradicts what we all know to be true from seeing all of those romantic comedies and many television shows. It is always the case in popular entertainment that the man is the one who has trouble expressing his love, not the woman. And it is always the case that the man is the one who is afraid of making a commitment, not the woman. Wow! Hollywood really got it wrong, that is, if the researchers got it right. 69 days is not that long a time for someone to fall in love.
But one question we must ask ourselves here, even assuming the study was accurate and the participants answered questions truthfully, is “do the men really mean it.” We all know that in relationships people say they love their partner, but they are not truly in love. Sometimes this is because the person is simply lying. Other times it is may because they want to believe it, even if it is not really true.
The researchers said that they conducted the first cross-national comparison of romantic speech acts and people’s verbal and/or emotional responses to them, while considering the factors that do and do not moderate these behaviors (biological sex, attachment style, and social environment). This simple three-word phrase can inspire much more effort within relationship science, they said.
The study surveyed 3,109 adults. Of these, over 70% were women, and 85% were heterosexual. The people came from Australia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, France, Poland, and the UK and the participants completed several online questionnaires about their relationships.
“Romantic love and passion are cultural universals and the need to feel belonging within stable social relationships is ubiquitous,” said the study’s authors. “The feeling of love predicts desire, sympathy, and commitment by facilitating trust and improving how couples resolve conflict. Commitment, in turn, both predicts and causes forgiveness in relationships and lowers anxiety in response to stress when we feel supported. Moreover, expressions of love and acts of affection enhance commitment and predict stable marital bonds. In sum, both the emotion and expression of romantic love contribute to stable long-term relationships and positive health outcomes.”
So, all things being equal, it seems that not only are men actually ready to admit their love to their partners, they come around to doing so sooner than women.
