How Long Does It Take To Fall In Love? (Here’s The Truth)

Are you wondering what’s taking your man so long to say ‘I love you’?

Does it take men longer than women to fall in love? 

Is there a deadline which means they probably won’t ever say those magic words? 

We explore these questions and more in the article below. 

But if you are desperately waiting for your man to say he loves you, it’s important to read these next few sentences very carefully.

I wasted too many of my best years in relationships with guys who didn’t truly care about me.

No matter how long I waited, these guys would never make grand gestures to show they loved me or wanted to commit for the long-term.

Deep down, I’d dread them getting bored and leaving, and most of them did. 

However, I was eventually able to turn this around – and it was all thanks to learning about a powerful aspect of male psychology.

It’s called the ‘Hero’s Instinct’.

This is a primal instinct found in most guys, and it can massively impact how they feel about the women in their life. 

Once I learned to activate this way of thinking inside my boyfriend, he began to treat me with more love and affection (you can learn how to do this by reading my personal story).   

It’s actually a really simple concept to understand, yet few women seem to know about it.

If you’re waiting on a man to tell you he loves you, it’s in your best interests to discover how I learned to use the Hero’s Instinct.  

Our guide will help you learn whether you’re right to be expecting the ‘L Bomb’ from your man. 

If you haven’t fallen in
love by six months should you quit and move on or does it actually take
longer?  There are those of course who
maintain that love can be, at first sight, is this really possible?  I want to explore whether there is actually
an answer to this age-old conundrum and compile a useful guide for your future
relationships.

What actually is love?

Love is a blend of physical
attraction, emotional connection and constant attachment.  Love cannot be defined in just a few words,
more like a few paragraphs.  Love has
long been the speculation and muse of poets, songwriters and lyricists. all
putting their own particular spin on this element of the human condition.

As we all know, there are
different types of love other than romantic love.  There is familial love between parent and
child or siblings.  But for our purposes,
this is just about romantic love and the ancient Greeks had seven different
words which reflect the different stages of falling in love and being in love.

• Storage – indicating
  a natural and gentle affection
• Philia – caring and
  devoted friendship
• Eros – erotic and
  sexual
• Agape – pure and
  divine love, unconditional
• Ludus –
  flirtatious
• Pragma – grounded,
  committed love, married love
• Philautia – self-love

If love were represented by color, there would be present all the tones of the rainbow with shades in between.  That is why love is so hard to define but it is part of the human condition to want a definition, to coral it, catch it so we can understand it and apply it to our own situation.

How to recognize love?

We can certainly all recognise love in other people,
particularly those we know well.  There
are so many telltale signs…distraction, preoccupation, always talking about that
person, distractedness, discussing issues which matter to them or are connected
to them in some way, the list goes on.

But can we recognise love in ourselves or the early
germination of what might flower into a grande passion?  Much as we would spot the signs in close
friends or family, these will also be evidence in our own behaviour.  I don’t know about you but I fail to
concentrate on anything, forgetting simple basic things and I can’t remember
anything anyone has said to me from one minute to the next!

Sometimes, these early warning signs are not so visible to us
as they are to other people.  Love is
hard to pin down, hard to quantify.  We
might realise we are falling in love but how do we know when we have arrived at
true love central station.  And will this
love endure?

Love is complex and textured, it has phases and shades which
alter throughout its life.  As human
beings, we strive to evaluate each part of the journey of love so our rational
brain can confirm our emotional experience.

What are the signs?

The early signs of love differ from what comes later.  Initially, the human brain goes into
overdrive and seemingly, all normal service is suspended.  The key signal is you cannot stop thinking
about that person and, if you see them a lot, say, someone you work with, you
just can’t stop looking at them.

Ironically, stress can play a big part in falling in
love.  The brain is under pressure and
may release cortisol which is the stress hormone.  This is what can account for that feeling of
a fluttering heart; this is actually physical and tangible anxiety.  You may feel sick or just nauseous, you may even
sweat or perspire.

Feelings of physical attraction will squash just about anything else which might usually trouble you, fear, pain, disgust.  The object of your affections will appear unique in their qualities and everyone else will just be greyed out in the background.  There is a sense of elevation to god-like status, quirks which might be viewed as otherwise irritating become individualistic and to be treasured.  Negativity is outlawed, they can do no wrong in your eyes.

This does sound a little worrying, is it possible to truly suspend reality and fall in love with someone totally foul and unsuitable based on this analysis?  Yes, indeed.

Is love just chemical?

Helen Fisher, an American
anthropologist, coined the phrase to describe love as, “someone camping out in
your head.”  Fisher had long been
studying romantic love in over 150 different societies.  In an experiment conducted in 2011, Fisher
and her scientific colleagues conducted an MRI scan of 37 people who were
truly, madly, deeply in love. 

The scan revealed an
increase in dopamine, the feel-good hormone demonstrating tangible evidence of
romantic love akin to the highs experienced following alcohol or cocaine use.
They discovered activity in areas of the brain such as the caudate nucleus in
the cerebrum of the brain which is linked to the reward mechanism.  Crucially this part of the brain also integrates
sensory experience into defined social behavioural patterns. 

The research also
highlighted the VTA – the Ventral Tegmental Area – an ancient place described
anatomically as ‘reptilian’ so primitive and which is connected to the human
traits of craving and wanting.  The study
also discovered based on brain scanning, that is was possible to still be head
over heels in love with someone after years of marriage providing hope to us
all.  The candidates for this part of the
research averaged a marriage span of around twenty years.

What place do online dating sites have in finding love?

Dating sites are stuffed
full of examples of couples who have found true love via their services…well
they would be wouldn’t they.  If love is,
well…so chemical, how can a dating site possibly hope to replicate the chemistry
of physical attraction?  Truth is, they can’t.

For sure, it does help if
you have things in common but ordering your perfect man through height, weight,
eye colour and occupation is not dissimilar to any other form of online
shopping – remote, characterless and clinical. 
Your brain will simply not respond in the same way to his profile photo
as it would do to him in the flesh.

Based on volume, however,
some couples will still get that click but online dating completely circumvents
the weird chemistry of physical attraction. 
Whatever happened to the concept of opposites attract and the randomness
of chance encounters?  Perhaps that is
why speed dating has made a real comeback, totally sold on the success of real
encounters.  Avoid those long boring
dates with online matches who turn you off as soon as they walk into the restaurant
but you are stuck with them for the evening!

Successive studies have
found that couples who make lasting eye contact gauge a stronger romantic
connection than those who don’t which kicks online dating into the long grass
as far as I’m concerned.  This works
apparently for strangers as well as for acquaintances.

How do we know we are in love?

In the early days, it is
mainly because of other people in their objectivity, spot what is right under
our nose and flag it for us.  Early,
subtle signs can be missed for a number of reasons but these can be really
evident to onlookers, family, friends and work colleagues.  But without the benefit of an MRI scan to
confirm our brain patterns, is it possible to nail down the fact that we are in
love?

Chemical responses in the
brain produce physical signs and traits which translate into our
behaviour.  Do you find you just don’t
stop talking about him?  Do you ever say
anything negative or derogatory, shouting down anyone who dares to criticise
him?  Do trivial details remind you of
him, cars similar to his, a piece of clothing or a particular trait of his body
language?  You are in love for sure.

This heightened focus has a
scientific basis, elevated amounts of dopamine as discussed but also central
norepinephrine which is linked to heightened awareness and retentive
memory.  Physical symptoms may include a
sudden burst of energy, sleeplessness, appetite changes varying from a feeling
of sickness to huge cravings for food. 

This euphoria, there is no
other word for it, can take a huge hit if there is a blip in those early days
when you will plunge from the heights of ecstasy into the depths of despair at
the first lovers’ tiff or row.

Is being in love different from falling in love?

Indeed it is and just as
well as no-one would want to manage those early heady days, lovely though they
are, on a long-term basis.  This would be
totally exhausting – this early high is not destined to last.

Love is well recognised for
several phases.  As the author, Louis de
Bernieres, famously wrote in ‘Captain
Correlli’s Mandolin’, “Love itself is what is left over when being in love
has burned away.”

Falling in love is intense, scary, all-embracing almost intoxicating.  Being in love is the next phase after the passion and ardour have cooled.  There is an element of selfishness, obsession even narcissism about falling in love which gives way to a status of greater self-control.  Taken to extremes, this can develop into stalker syndrome.

The passion and furore of
new love and falling in love can be used as a driver for leaving an old
relationship, a justification for finding fault with that person and walking
away.  Being in love however is a calmer,
more settled state. 

True love is said to be
gained after experience, the ups and downs of life, good times and bad.  It has a toughness and an endurance totally
different from the intoxication of early love. 
Crucially, being in love is deemed to have an element of choice about it
– you choose to maintain that love and relationship.  Falling in love is altogether more random.

Does saying I love you mean you are in love or he is in love with you?

Those three key little words
that every woman wants to hear.  Did you
know that statistically, men are likely to say them earlier on in the
relationship that women?  That rather
debunks the theory that men are ‘commitmentphobes’.

Everyone and I mean everyone
has a different opinion about when you should say, ‘I love you’, in terms of
the duration of the relationship and also the occasion.  Is there such a thing as an average length of
time?  Apparently so, men take approximately
88 days to confess their love.

Timing is crucial, harking
back to the old adage of, ‘it is not what you say its how you say it’.  And perhaps the most crucial thing for the
speaker is feeling comfortable with how that news may be received by the other
person.  Hearing those words might invite
reciprocation which isn’t necessarily always forthcoming.

Rebekah Montgomery, a
therapist in Washington in the States, reports that you should wait at least
three months even if you are sure of your feelings because the progression of
love takes at least that time.  But
doesn’t it just come down to temperament? 
An Englishman will never tell his wife he loves her in case it isn’t
true whereas an Italian man will tell her repeatedly just in case it is.

Love at first sight, does it even exist?

Scientists describe this as
the law of attraction which is crafted as love in the eye of the beholder.  ‘I loved her as soon as I saw her’, is a
phrase often heard and references a genuine attraction which hindsight and the
reasoning part of the brain look back on and dress with the mantle of love at
first sight.

Harper’s Bazaar conducted a
poll via the dating site Elite Singles in 2017 which stated that 61% of women and
72% of men amongst those surveyed thought that love, at first sight, was a
genuine phenomenon.  But loving someone
is a long haul, through ups and downs, trials and tribulations, it requires
stamina, commitment and endurance to keep it alive.

There is genuine science
behind this concept. 
Neuropsychotherapist, Dr Trisha Stratford reported in The Huffington
Post, there is a genuine chemical reaction going on in the brain releasing
dopamine and serotonin.  If the
attachment is reciprocated, then bingo, you have lift off.

But some pundits will tell
you that rose-tinted glasses and hindsight can often put an inaccurate and
warm, fuzzy glow over what you have experienced.  Memory is the greatest illusion of all
sometimes.  You might remember that
initial attraction as love at first sight when it may have been nothing greater
than a chemical connection and mutual desire.

If love isn’t instant, is there an average timespan?

This is the million-dollar
question for everyone.  You want to know
whether what you are feeling is good enough, strong enough to make this
relationship worth pursuing.  Shouldn’t I
be in love by now is the question you ask yourself, if not, why bother carrying
on?

Some geek somewhere has
deemed that men take on average three months to fall in love so around 88 days
whereas women will head well over 100 days, closer to 150, before they reach
that state.  But, of course, women want
to hear those words much earlier on even if they do wait longer to reciprocate.

It is important to
distinguish between falling in love and actually professing it.  Early love may be hidden for fear of
frightening the other person off, it doesn’t mean it isn’t there.  A more cautious personality will be steadier
and careful whereas a man with a Latin temperament will be far more demonstrative
and effusive.

The timing of the arrival of
love is therefore unique to each couple and their specific characters,
personalities and circumstances.

Is love at first sight more successful than a slow burn type of affair?

I guess the first question
is what do you mean by successful.  Is
success a ring on the finger, three children and a 25^th wedding
anniversary party?  For most people,
success is about the happy ever after. 
Can relationships which evolve more slowly be as durable if not more so
than the quick-fire love at first sight types?

Love is varied and there is
no hard and fast rule to answer this question. 
Some people start out as friends and love blossoms over a period of
time.  For others, it is a chance
encounter which sets them off on a journey which lasts for the rest of their
lives.  It would be really hard to say
that one is better or more superior than the other.

Slow burn love ticks the box
big time for dating sites which rely on a more clinical approach to putting
people together based on computer algorithms. 
I guess what this proves is that the ultimate success of the
relationship is down to how hard people work at it irrespective of how it
began.  Some relationships can even germinate
based on dislike proving that persistency on the part of the suitor also has
its rewards.

Is there just one person for us on the planet or could we potentially fall in love with lots of people?

If you have been in love
more than once then you will already know the answer to this question.  But it is a foxy one as if you can possibly
love lots of different people, it is kinda worrisome to think that there is a
pool of several possible lovers out of there for you.  How do you choose the right one?

Perhaps the question really
is, not how long does it take to fall in love but how do you know that this one
is for keeps.  Most women want to know
how quickly they will fall for someone but this is only because they want to
find ‘the one’.  The real burning
question that underlies this quest is, therefore, how do I know he is a keeper?

This is a tough one.  Some would say it is just instinct but if you
are a worrier, surely there are some questions you could pose yourself which
might let you benchmark whether this one really is for keeps.

How can I test whether he is a keeper?

Pose yourself this little
test and see if he scores an A grade:-

• Is there
  anything about him that worries you or causes you anxiety?
• Do you
  trust him implicitly?
• Does he
  listen to you properly regardless of the nature of the problem?
• Does he fit
  into all areas of your life, your work, the social scene, your family?
• Do you
  share the same values, the same moral code?
• Is he your
  biggest fan, other than your mum of course?
• Does he
  love you regardless of your faults and imperfections?
• Do you love
  him irrespective of his?
• Do you like
  your own space and independence but are still happy to make room for him?
• Are you the
  only one in your friendship group that never moans about her man?

In this top ten quiz,
anything over 75% is a good score.

How do long-distance relationships fit into the love scale?

You might think that you
need to add a few digits on the calendar if you and your love are separated by
distance.  But, absence certainly can
make the heart grow fonder.  Real love
can ignite just as quickly between two people who are in far-flung locations as
those who are physically closer together.

These days, people don’t’
need to rely on an occasional phone call or letter, social media, Skype and
Facetime can keep us in touch round the clock with that all-important eye
contact so distance doesn’t have to change things.

The thing to be aware of
with long-distance affairs is that the lack of proximity can itself cause a
distortion.  Talking over Messanger or
your laptop is not the same as face to face touching contact, a problem for
many relationships which are not even long distance.  The yearn and angst of distance can create a
burning desire that is perhaps disproportionate to the recipient.  It can elevate them to a godlike status they
may not be awarded if they were just a few steps away in the office.

How do social media and the internet affect relationships?

There is no substitute in my
opinion for real-time dating and physical contact.  I have already considered dating sites and
speed dating but maintaining a relationship which is more online than offline
can bring its own problems.

Constant electronic
engagement can give you the impression that a relationship is more advanced
than it really is or more important to you than it should be.  Progress your relationship face to face
rather than via a mouse or screen. 

There are some helpful rules
to follow as these days, most relationships are conducted in part online
irrespective of how you met and your respective locations.

• Don’t type
  anything that you wouldn’t say in person
• Understand
  that the written word whether it is text, email or messenger, can convey a
  different weight or meaning than those words if otherwise said face to face
• Always say
  something tender, important or controversial face to face
• Don’t row
  remotely
• Make sure
  your online communications are not more time consuming and prevalent than the actual
  time you spend together

I guess a reasonable average
would be to conclude that if you are going to fall in love then it should have happened
within six months.  That timespan covers
the spectrum of instant attraction encounters right through to the slower burn
type of relationships and all the variations inbetween.  It also allows enough time for early passion
to come under control and common sense to wander into the room. 

If you are after ‘happily ever after’ then it might be time to skedaddle if you are not feeling it by six months.  But if you like the guy and are happy with no big plans then why worry.  If you think differently or would like to contribute your own thoughts then feel free share your own personal experiences here.

FAQs