I think it’s funny how the assertion “I love you” means different things to men and women. For a man, his wife could tell him she loved him he’d take it at face value and move forward happily with the confidence of knowing that she indeed did love him. He doesn’t need bolstering or re-affirmation. It’s an item that has been checked off the to-do list, “Find out that wife loves me.” She does. Check. Done. Let’s go mow the lawn.
Women are different. I could tell my girlfriend fourteen times a day that I love her but, somehow, she seems to forget overnight. The next morning she’ll wake up and question it “I wonder if he really meant it when he said he loved me yesterday? He seemed distracted when he said it.” When in all actuality, I might have been watching the Packer game or drilling a hole in something at the time. But I said it and I meant it. The condition of my mind, Mike McCarthy’s inept play calling, or the status of the battery on my drill at the time didn’t have anything to do with the quality of my expression. I was sincere. And I said it. That’s good enough right? For men, yes. Not for women.
See, for men, things are very binary. It’s yes or no. Simple. “Told her I love her.” Done. Good for another year. What should I do now? With women, being told that she’s loved is more like opening a box of uranium. It has a half-life that starts to decay immediately. In twelve hours, it could be completely depleted and useless. You’ll just have to open up another box. Every day. Several times a day in fact. And there’s no use buying a great big box either. It’s half-life runs out just as fast as a small box. There are also no fewer than 2,827,963 stupid acts a man could commit that will completely deactivate the uranium, requiring opening, yet another box. Possibly many.
To the man, saying “I love you” is like painting the house. You should only have to do it once every five years or so. Not four times a day. That’s just crazy. No house should not need that much paint. Once every few years should be good enough. But it doesn’t work that way. He knows he’s loved when she fixes him a sandwich even though she’s busy. He’s good. He gets it. For her, he could make seven hundred sandwiches and it wouldn’t matter. She just needs a little crust with some cheese and mayonnaise on it. She doesn’t even need the whole sandwich. It’s all about timing, not the amount.
You see, this disparity is tough on men. We think, “Shit, she’s gotta know I love her, right? Remember those kick-ass flowers I gave her at Valentine’s Day?” Nope. That instance of love-affirmation went out with the roses. She needs you to do it again, and again, then one more time, just to be sure.
The male mind is like a computer. When faced with a challenge he does a quick mental Google search for an instance of love expressed in the past eighteen months. If he gets a hit he feels like he’s done his job. Not to her. Her love tank may have been empty for weeks. His woman might be showing signs of love deprivation and he should know from experience that all he has to do is go open another box of uranium. But, sometimes he doesn’t; at least, not in timely-enough a manner. That’s where the problems start.
