How Do You Know When It’s Love?

As both a romance writer and reader, the thing I enjoy most about the genre is watching two people fall in love. Sometimes it’s funny and sometimes it makes you cry, and we always know that the couple will make it through to be happy (at least for now, if not forever). Knowing that happiness is coming doesn’t ruin the story, because it’s the journey that keeps us coming back for more.

As readers, most of the time, we recognize the signs of someone falling in love before they do. Maybe it’s because we’re on the outside looking in and we can be objective. The lust is easy and characters usually accept lust and physical attraction. For whatever reason, they have a much harder time recognizing love. Sometimes, they can admit having feelings, caring for, or loving someone, but not being in love.

My question is, how do we know? How do we distinguish between caring and liking and loving and being “in love”?

My immediate response might be “I know it when I see/feel it,” but that’s a cop out.

Remember the Love is… comics? Like this —->    

I could get a daily dose of explanation of how to recognize love. Often it is in the little things, and I get that, but if you’re in a new relationship, how do you know if it’s real? How do you look past the shiny new excitement and know?

I’ve been married for a long time, and I’ve said before that even when my husband and I were just friends, we both knew that there was something more there that we chose to ignore because we weren’t ready. I can’t remember how I processed those feelings or if I really even paid attention to them.

So I’m turning it over to you. How do you know when you’ve fallen in love?

Men Fall in Love Faster than Women – Really?

image taken from http://www.proprofs.com

Recently I saw a news article on the topic of men falling in love. I went to find the original source and couldn’t find anything from the past couple of weeks, but I did find this one from last summer. Why it took Yahoo 9 months to run something similar is beyond me. Basically, a woman, Elizabeth Noble, wanted to write a novel about reunited lovers and did some research. What she found was that:

1. Men fall in love more quickly than women. “Nearly a quarter said they believed in love at first sight and knew whether a girl was ‘the one’ within seconds.”

2. Men fall in love more often than women. Women tend to have just one true love and the average British man falls in love three times.

3. Men are more likely to pine after their first love.

4. Men tend to say “I love you” first.

There are more observations that the author makes, but these are the ones that stand out for me as a romance writer. I think for the most part, numbers 1, 2, and 4 go hand-in-hand. If you’re quick to fall in love, you’re more likely to say it and do it more often.

I wonder why it is, though, that it always seems to be that the woman is painted as the romantic. According to the research, women are more likely to take their time falling in love and they seek advice from friends and family. I’ve talked about my belief (or lack of) in love at first sight here.

I think that because men are visual creatures and are more likely to equate physical love with emotional love, they are then more likely to turn insta-lust into love. I have no basis for this, other than my own experiences with men I know. So, if there are men out there, please chime in.

I wonder if what they think is love, really is. Of course, there’s no way to measure love, but when I look back at the one guy I thought I loved, it doesn’t compare to the love I have with my husband. Does that make sense?

Men are do-ers not thinkers; therefore, if they believe they’re in love, they’re going to say it. I can believe that men would say “I love you first,” especially because I think a lot of women think that if they say it too early, they’ll scare the man off or they’ll be seen as clingy.

Number 3 is the one observation that really makes the most sense for me. I believe this and I think it’s the reason why reunited lovers stories sell so  well. I think men do have  a hard time really letting go of that first love. Because of that, if at some point that first love re-enters a man’s life, he’d definitely consider another chance, even if she broke his heart the first time around. In most reunited lovers stories the man has never truly gotten over the woman. Sure he’s had sex with plenty of women, but no serious relationships. Sometimes this holds true for the woman as well, but I think it’s almost expected for the hero.

I know for me, now that I’ve read this research, I’m going to pay closer attention to the books I read to see if they reflect this. Off the top of my head, I couldn’t guess, but now I’m going to check it out.

What’s your experience? Do men fall in love quicker than women? If so, why is it almost always portrayed as the woman falling fast?

Funny Guys

I know I usually blog about TV on Thursdays and while I’ve watched some great new shows over the past couple of weeks, I’m fighting the tail end (I hope) of a migraine. So instead, I bring you this:

I found this on StumbleUpon, and although I tried to find the actual source, I had no luck. I kept this because for me, it totally holds true. If you asks my kids why I fell for their dad, they’d say without hesitation that it was because he made me laugh. The very first time we met, he made me laugh a lot, which is never an easy task.

I know a lot of women will claim that a good sense of humor is the most important trait they look for in a guy, but I’m not sure I believe it. I think it’s easy to overlook the funny.

What is the one characteristic that would make you fall for a guy (or girl)?