It was their fourth date. Mary and Scott had shared a wonderful evening together that had started with a romantic dinner by the river and had progressed to dancing at a chic outdoor night club. Their connection was electric; both had spent the majority of their time between dates thinking about the other, wondering what the other was doing and when they would see that other again.
And here they were, holding each other and dancing beneath the moonlight, ecstatic to be together and determined to make the time last. As they exit the nightclub, intoxicated by multiple beverages and their own irresistibly contagious mood, their hands find one another. Scott seems unable to help himself; "You're a great girl, Mary," he says quietly into her ear. Smitten, she impulsively responds "I love you."
BOOM - there's that L-bomb. The key feature of this bomb, boys and girls, is that its unfathomable store of infinite potential energy is completely time-dependent. This means that while the bomb's energy will always have an extreme impact on the relationship where the bomb is dropped, the timing of the drop will determine which direction the energy will go.
This energy has the potential to destroy or create - drop the bomb on schedule, and the energy will create a strong bond between two people; drop it too early, and the two beings are polarized, instantly and permanently separated like the North and South ends of a magnet.
A little scientific? I was just trying to paint a clever visual. In short, Mary made a big error. She said "I love you" before the time was right - before it was even possible for it to be right, as four dates have not done justice to love's development.
Yes, the situation opening the post is fictional - but I know of too many a similar nonfictional situation for the fiction to invalidate the situation itself. I know too many Marys (both male and female) - hey, I've BEEN a Mary (I have also been a Scott). Let me tell you - the end of the story is usually the same, and it rarely if ever bodes well for Mary.
Sometimes the beginning of a relationship is - for lack of a better term - magical. We get swept up in the newness and the excitement of a fresh person in our lives, full of interesting differences and welcome surprises. We remember past loves and think wow - well, this is so much better!
But that doesn't mean it's love. We've all heard the difference between love and lust, and between love and infatuation. I don't necessarily agree with the extremeness of such black-and-white binaries, but nonetheless, transitions from the love of excitement to the love of a person are, by rule, long and gray. Give a relationship time to develop, so you and your SO (ish) gain some clear perspective before bombing it up and clouding it over again.
Hey - maybe you do love a person after 3 dates. Maybe you truly do love them at first sight - everyone's different! But that's what you need to keep in mind - everyone's different. You may know for sure that you love your other but s/he may not be ready to accept such an instantaneous proclamation.
So zip it till later. Let the energy of the bomb continue to build, along with the trust that is inextricably linked with the passing of time. Secure the bomb's direction before tossing it out into the open. You have nothing to lose - either you will say it at a later time when it can only help construct and deepen your relationship, or you will have time to decide against its use after all.
Dropping it early, well...it may or may not work out. The greater probability is that it won't, though - so play it safe. Just don't do it.
What about you - have you or anyone you've known said "I love you" too early? If so, how did the relationship situation end up?
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Comments (28)
yeah, my ex-boyfriend said i love you waaayyy too fast. like right after the first time we kissed. well, i think more accurately he said "i think i'm starting to love you" or something like that. we had class together for almost a semester, but had only been talking and hanging out for like a week. he was just very impulsive with his emotions. i felt pressured to say "i love you" sooner than i really felt it. but saying it made me believe that i felt it. i got too invested in the relationship, actually started to believe that he loved me too, then he lost interest. crushed me. yeah... with my current boyfriend, we dated 6 months before we said it. i said it first, but i think we both felt it before that. we let our relationship develop slowly, not getting too emotionally invested too quickly. we let it grow and get stronger with time, instead of fizzle out within a few months.
but yeah... i think saying it too soon can definitely fuck things up. but its probably just a symptom of a bigger problem within the relationship.
I had been kind of seeing someone for like 4 1/2 months. Is that too early to be in love with someone? I don't think I was but I know I was for damn sure that I am in like with him.
One of my exes said he loved me after not even a month of being with me. I told him to shut up and that I didn't believe him. I was right to say that first because a week later he broke up with me. He still insisted that he was before he broke up with me, though, lol what a f-ing tard.
Ahem..... timing is solely based on feeling instead. If two people feel the strong attraction, not just physically but emotionally as well, then there is no such thing as "too early." Each person and relationship is different. Certainly, their standards may not completely match yours, but it's because it is their standards.
Do NOT zip it! That's ridiculous. If you love someone, tell them.
Nobody defines love the same exact way, and you can love people different ways. You don't have to CENSOR yourself for fear it might be "too early" in the relationship.
I wrote a note and explained that there was no pressure on his part, but I needed to say it.
I made it clear that I just wanted it to be out there and he could respond when and if he wanted.
My boyfriend said "I love you" on the THIRD DATE. We didn't even know eachother well at all before we started dating. I said "And, I really like you" back.. That was waaayy too soon to say "I love you". I said "I love you" a month and a half later...
I always think that these posts where you allude to the word "love" are really alluding to the word "lesbian". I wish I could be right one of these fucking times :/
My boyfriend told me he loves me after we were together about a week. I said it back, caught off guard, and said that I love a lot of people. We're still together, nearly 9 months later.
My ex, a good friend of four years, told me that he was afraid we'd fall out of love.
This was only a few days after we admitted we liked each other.I got freaked out and told him that I didn't like him a week or two later.We haven't spoken for two months.My first two exes both dropped the L-bomb after a week or two of dating. I said it back the first time (I was 19 and didn't know any better). I waited a few months for the second. When my husband and I were dating, though, it was almost love at first sight for me. He was a little more cautious thanks to some really horrible dating experiences in his past. I held my tongue until four months in and then I couldn't hold on anymore and told him...and we promptly had our first and only true fight. He took a little time on his own to think things through, and when he got back from Thanksgiving break (we were in college at the time), he told me how, even though he couldn't say it yet, he didn't want what we had to go away, blah blah blah...five years later, and we're happily married. Dropping the L-Bomb before the other person's ready isn't always a bad thing, though it did cause a couples weeks of rockiness in our relationship. Ultimately, though, it brought us closer.
-Katie
When i was younger i dropped it within a month, the relationship lasted 4 more years, within that time it was perfect. In fact i've yet to find another girl like her. If its real, and you really mean it say it.
@laytexduckie@xanga - I completely agree. It's all circumstantial.
I don't condone flippantly dropping the L word, but think about it -- if you truly love your SO, wouldn't you want to say it? I wouldn't always rationalize it this way, but the way I saw it with my current SO was that he could die in a car accident on the way home, have a stroke, get struck by lightning -- you just never know. And I, at that time, wouldn't want him to die without knowing.
Okay, maybe a little dramatic and extreme, but the feelings behind the words were and are there. And lucky for me, he feels the same. :)
I see what you mean but at the same time, not all people break up just because the other one falls in love faster than the other. I just wish that the people who says it will understand that it won't always be reciprocated - not yet or maybe just plain never. But still, if I love somebody, I'll tell them. If they can't accept it, oh well. Disappointing but eh. All they have to do is accept it. No need to return it. This is for me, atleast.
My ex told me he loved me before w even met. WTF?
hmm.... what if you've been friends for years? ... i guess it's still just best to wait. i dated my best friend of 5 years, and even though it was like BAM from that first kiss.... we still waited like 3 months after we started dating to confess our love. and i waited til he went first. (think we both knew though, it was inevitable...)
my ex told me he loved me before our one month hit, i started falling for him, almost 5 months in, he told me he can only love me as a friend. maybe it was just him, but i guess people can sometimes get confused of what kind of love they have for their SO. which i find kind of stupid!
With two of my exes, we pretty much said it around the time we started going out. But in both cases, I had already been best friends with them for about a year before we decided to become more than just friends, so it didn't feel like we were saying it too early. :D
@donspike@xanga - LOL what? How does that work?
@Julie - internet. apparently he'd seen me around school and had been crushing on me for four years. I was like whaaaat.
Every time the L-bomb is dropped in one of my relationships (whether it's he or I saying it first), the relationship dies within a week after. So I'm holding off from now on.
My last SO said it after six weeks... I said it back and we lasted for nine months. I felt like it was a good time, but now that I think about it, he still hadn't seen anything negative about me, and it all moved pretty quickly (we spent pretty much every single day together, entire weekends together from the beginning, etc). The one before him said it in two weeks. WAYYYY too soon and I didn't say it back until the month mark. The problem when someone says it too soon is I let myself get swept away and spend all of my time with them thinking it's "safe" because they "love me" but then they realize that it was probably just infatuation. Men fall in love quicker and fall out of love quicker, so I think when a man says it too soon, it's too easy for women to get swept up in it all, and then the man falls out of love... From all of my too-fast-moving relationships, I think slower is better :)
@babymeatball@xanga - This sounds like what happened to me in one of my relationships. It ended after three months... He was just too impulsive. I think men believe it when they say it, but if they don't know the woman (which it's impossible to REALLY know someone after a couple of weeks), then they eventually realize they aren't perfect and the butterflies go away and they decide they aren't in love anymore.
I can't help but think of Friends ..
"I love you."
"And I love ... spending time with you!"
I think this sort of thing shouldn't have a rule or a "better" time. Some people worry about telling people things and wait. Some people are more impulsive or else don't care about what the other person will think in terms of "dating rules and when to drop the L-bomb." And you know what, there can be positive and negative responses with both types of people. I say go with your instinct, because it sucks to be the girl who never said how she felt and then regretted it for a long time after.
If I had told my last love that I was in love with her when I wanted to (about 7-8 months after meeting her) instead of waiting like my friend recommended, I have a feeling my situation would not be what it is now. So, playing it safe isn't always the best option.
@laytexduckie@xanga - Agreed. I more mean when you're not sure about how YOU feel, in that you ARE saying it ahead of schedule...hey, people know when they're in love, and then yes - they should say it.