Why Guys can't Say "I Love You"

On a beautiful evening last spring, I found myself sitting on a balcony overlooking San Francisco Bay with a trio of strange men. We were all guests at a Passover Seder, and since this was California, we were drinking sauvignon blanc instead of Manischewitz and we were talking about sex instead of God.

The men were all ex-Bachelors, members of a boys' club called the Bachelors when they were students at Beverly Hills High School in the late Sixties. One Bachelor was happily married, one was recently divorced and one was still a bachelor. They began to sing old Bachelor songs and tell old Bachelor jokes and talk about having a Bachelors' reunion.

I asked if they'd be inviting their old girlfriends, and somehow, the discussion fell to a certain girl, a girl who worked the whole Bachelor crowd like a software salesman networking a hardware convention.

"She was always trying to get you to say 'I love you,'" said Bachelor number one.

"Yeah, yeah--no 'I love you,' no hand job," said Bachelor number two.

I asked if any of them had ever actually said it. "Hell, no" came the Bachelor chorus. I noted a distinct better-dead-than--"I love you"--said attitude among these men. I began to wonder, Is saying "I love you" the male equivalent of putting out?

I thought of those black-and-white movies where the woman suddenly sits up in bed and turns away from the man. Then he lights a cigarette and says, "Do you need the words?"

Hell, yes. Women need the words. But why?

There are a number of ways to research a question like this and I have taken both the high and the low roads in this article. I considered the ladies'-magazine approach, which meant consulting "experts." I thought about calling noted therapists. But I knew what they would say: Men fear commitment and intimacy and bonding. They would use the words commitment and intimacy and bonding so often that they would begin to sound like items on a shopping list. "Honey, while you're out, pick me up a pound of fresh-ground commitment."

Better to do some field studies. I decided to go directly to the workers, those noble men and women toiling in the fields of love and sex. I put the questions "Why don't men want to say 'I love you'?" and "Why do women need to hear the words I love you?" out on my computer network. With some editing, I have come up with the following lists of profound insights into the issues.

The top ten reasons men won't say "I Love You"

The top ten reasons women want men to say "I Love You"

While all these reasons have the clear ring of truth and the slight odor of bullshit, they lack the depth of an individual perspective. For that, I consulted two love professionals. I spoke with my friend Rock, who has been with one woman for 25 years, and with my friend Spike, who has been with many women for 25 minutes.

Both are obsessed with love in their own ways. Besides being monogamous, Rock (known professionally as Dr. John Boe) is a professor of love--lecturing on the subject at universities and coffeehouses. He has even produced his own tape, John Boe on Love.

Spike is a professional hunter, devoted to the search for what he likes to call the primal beaver. He deplores the fact that his work as a chemist takes so much time away from his experiment to achieve the perfect chemistry.

"Spike," I said to him over drinks recently, "how many women do you estimate you've actually been with?"

He thought it over carefully. As a man of science, Spike takes numbers seriously. He went through the Rolodex of his mind a few minutes and finally said, "Approximately one thousand."

"And of those thousand, to how many have you said 'I love you'?" I asked him.

Without taking too much time, he said, "Seven."

I laughed and spit out some chardonnay.

"You think that's a lot?" he said, sipping his Bohemia.

"No," I said. "You're a scientist. Does a seven-out-of-a-thousand chance sound high to you?"

"Well, I'm very careful about language in those moments," he continued. "I know you think I lie a lot--which I do, but not about that. Most people are incapable of a serious relationship, so when I'm with someone, I try to decide: Is this just fun for the evening? I don't want to hurt anyone, so I stick to a minimum of verbalization. It's supposed to be fun, just a date, not a contract. I'm not going to try to get laid with 'I love you.' "

"I know," I told him. "As Elvis said, 'It's a very sacred thing to me.' "

"Women attach a lot of importance to words," Spike continued. "They get hurt when you say something trivial like, 'The steak wasn't well cooked.' Women may not remember where they parked the car, but they remember the exact time you committed to them. When you say 'I love you,' they believe it."

Why do they want to hear it?

"Women have more agendas than men do. The younger ones want to get married and have children. The older ones want money and security. Once you say 'I love you,' the ball's in their court. They can proceed with the agenda."

"Have you ever felt that women were manipulating you, trying to get you to say the words, trying to get your balls in their court?"

"Well, the best one was the therapist who told me that she loved me. Then she looked me in the eye and said, 'How do you feel about that?' "

I wondered how many of that group we now called The Spike 1000 had tried to get him to talk about his feelings. Did he think women were, in fact, more verbal?

"They're very verbal about the relationship, about when this will happen again, but almost mute about details like where I should put my finger. Women may need verbal foreplay, but they don't like to talk about how to do it."

What do The 1000 like to talk about before sex?

"They like to talk about themselves, their gripes. They want 'I love you' only after sex."

And what does Spike like to talk about before sex?

"I used to say anything--'I've got eight inches and it's unbelievable'--anything. We're talking about initially now--before you're a friend. I have a system, a different way of approaching people other than my regulars, or my regs, as I like to call repeaters. I usually have several relationships going--somewhere between just getting big and saying 'I love you.'

"But I'm careful. Part of love is allowing yourself to be dependent on someone. Otherwise, you can jack off or do it to hookers. Yet you can't just go looking for it, like with an ad. I'm a romance junkie. I love to be in love and have someone love me. If it happens, great; but you can't be a professional and feel bad. I love naked women, but I'm not going to say 'I love you' unless someone really moves me."

I thanked him for sharing with me. "Always a pleasure," said Spike.

A few days later, I met with Rock, the 25-year, one-woman man, the professor of love-ology, the author of the love tape. He came amazingly close to Spike, the 25-minute man, as he explained why men don't like to say "I love you."

"Men take love seriously and don't want to waste the word," he explained over lunch. "Men actually believe in love. Women want to talk about love, figure it out, think of the economic side. Marriage was an economic arrangement until recently. The Puritans invented marrying for love when they said, 'If I can't fuck, I might as well get married.' "

"Is that why you got married?" I asked.

"My marriage has nothing to do with being in love. Love is what I have. In a marriage, you know the person, you're not just struck by an arrow. Being in love is being possessed. Men fall harder. Women know love can go wrong, that love is actually creepy."

(concluded on page 162)"I Love You"(continued from page 100)

When was the last time that Rock said "I love you" to Mrs. Rock?

"The last time was three days ago, when I had to give her a phone message that her business deal had fallen through. When she came home, I said, 'There's good news and there's bad. The good news is that I love you; the bad news is that your offer was refused.' But you can't squander the words or they lose their effect."

Women, to Rock, are verbal sluts who throw words around too easily.

"The words are such a formula that they don't mean anything. Abracadabra--I love you. A poem takes effort. Men write love poems, lyric poems. Lyric poems are short, the literary equivalent of slam, bam, thank you, ma'am. But women write long novels--supposedly about love but really about economic and social issues. Men actually want the words to mean something. That's why I say the great oxymoronic book title is not War and Peace but Women in Love."

"Then why do you think women want to hear the words?"

"Women aren't sure of themselves with men. They assume their mates are lusting after other women. Women treat men like Pavlov treated his dogs. A man is supposed to say 'I love you' on cue. But men don't want to talk about their feelings. Men are unconscious about them. A man talking about feelings is like women talking about ideas. Women are always ready for more feelings, for more emotions. Maybe it's hormonal. For men, Feelings is a song sung by Julio Iglesias. Women like the pornography of emotions--to excite the feelings with romance."

Does Rock, like many other men, think that feelings and expressions of feelings are sissy?

"It's not sissy, but it's difficult except for certain wimpy men who've given up their balls and say 'I love you' as often as women say it. Then there's the fad of men saying 'Hey, I love you' to other men. Like when Isiah Thomas kisses Magic Johnson on the basketball court."

I asked Rock where he stands on the cliché that men don't want to declare love because they fear the Big C--commitment.

"Saying 'I love you' doesn't mean I'm committed to you," he said. "It doesn't mean I want to live with you the rest of my life. It doesn't mean I'll sign a prenuptial agreement. 'I love you' is in the present tense. It doesn't mean I will love you or I'll love you forever."

"Well, then, what is the shelf life of 'I love you'?" I asked him. "When I was younger, I wanted to hear it because, to me, it meant I had a date for Saturday night. I was taken care of."

"Yeah, but for a woman, one 'I love you' isn't enough. They want it to go on and on. Women want multiple 'I love yous.' "

Later, when I dropped Rock off, he leaned over the seat and said, "Hey, Alice, I love you."

"Rock," I said, playing Sammy to his Frank, "you're beautiful people. Oh, yeah. Your wife asked me to find out if you love her."

"I'm going in the house right now and tell her I love her," he said.

"Even if you don't mean it?"

"It's not that I don't mean it," he said earnestly. "I don't know what it means."

So to Rock and Spike and the Bachelors and Elvis, the words remain a mystery, a very sacred thing. Men will lie about a lot of things--sending checks in the mail, having to work late, pulling out in time--but not about this.

Now, I can't speak for all women, but I do know this: The words remain important for me and for many other women precisely because they are mysterious.

There is no mystery in "I want to fuck you." No ambiguity in "Let's live together this year." But "I love you" is a text more debatable than the Torah. Mystery makes the words almost sacred. And mystery, except in religion, is what is missing from the days of our lives.

For late 20th Century Americans, finding love has become a kind of religion--a quest for the Holy Grail of a relationship. There are singles groups meeting nightly like cults of love seekers. There are personal ads everywhere like candles lit in church. Even on Passover, we end up asking, "Why are the words I love you different from all other words?"

When someone utters the mantra "I love you," it's a sign he has lost control. He is not trying to understand. He is too far gone to ask all those questions about the meaning of love--rational, financial, intellectual questions. And until someone writes the best seller Intimacy Through Intimidation, no power on earth but a mysterious inner need can move someone to say those words.

Men.

Can't live without 'em; can't hold a gun to their heads and force 'em to say "I love you."

"For men, 'Feelings' is a song sung by Julio Iglesias. Women like the pornography of emotions."