How Can You Know For Sure?

In modern day romances, love isn’t as clear-cut as the number of petals on a flower.

As a little girl, I remember watching a scene from Disney’s The Little Mermaid. The red-haired Ariel lounges atop an underwater rock, plucking the petals of a yellow sea flower, alternating between “he loves me" and “he loves me not” with each petal.

At the onset of her starry-eyed romance with Prince Eric, the the poor mermaid is looking for some perspective: does Prince Eric really care about her, or is it all in her head?

That she turns to a flower for the answer can be read as evidence of her girlish immaturity, yet, sometimes, I wonder whether or not there’s a more clear-cut way of knowing whether a guy is actually into you.

I’m no love guru. In fact, I’m probably the last person you should be seeking for advice on love, but I have learned a few things along the way. One thing I’ve learned is that in the early stages of a relationship, men and women act differently. While women may be willing to lay their feelings bare, men are much more coy. It’s a reversed system to sexual coyness, where men are usually more upfront about their desires and women hold out.

Women are socialized to be more expressive beings, and as expressive beings, we want to hear how much someone cares about us. This is why women put more emphasis on the time it takes in a relationship for her partner to utter those three sought-after words, “I love you.”

Most men aren’t expressive—at least not until they feel comfortable enough to be vulnerable with their feelings. This used to bother me: why can’t men say what they feel rather than canning it? Why are women always left guessing, resorting to picking petals on a flower?

I’ve discovered that, while you can ask a man how much he cares about you, chances are, he won’t be able to vocalize it: Men aren’t socialized to display a connection to their emotions, and they especially aren’t socialized to be vulnerable. For a man to tell a girl how much she means to him requires a certain amount of trust, and for most men, this trust isn’t easily established. There are, however, some tell-tale ways of knowing.

Here are my top three.

He Thinks Of You:
While you may never be able to read a man’s thoughts, you know you’re on his brain when he’s sending you his attention. If he’s calling you, texting you, and sending you lengthy e-mails or Facebook messages, then chances are you’re on his mind, and he’s reaching out to you to reciprocate the feeling.

He Cares About What You Care About:
One of the best tests of whether or not someone cares about you is whether or not they care about what you care about. If you’re an aspiring actress, does he encourage your auditions? Help you rehearse? If he cares about you on a more-than-carnal level, he wants what’s best for you, believes in your dreams, and shows it.

You Feel It:
Don’t get lost in the analytics of it all: take a deep breath, close your eyes and ask yourself honestly, he loves me, he loves me not. If you’re still unsure, your can resort to Princess Ariel’s petal-picking method, but chances are, if you’re still asking, you already know the answer.

Image from MorgueFile

Amanda Cosco
		About the author:
		Amanda Cosco is a freelance writer. The city is her muse.  After completing a master’s degree in English Literature at Ryerson University in Toronto, Amanda packed up her life and moved to the city in pursuit of jazz, sex, and soup. Amanda completed her bachelor of arts at York University, where she had one foot in literary studies and one foot in journalism, earning her a double-major in English and professional writing. Amanda has presented her scholarly work at academic at conferences across Toronto, and her research on the metaphor of hunger in women’s fiction has received over $30,000 in grants and prizes. With her pen name, Lady Medusa, Amanda has left her digital footprints all over the internet. Currently, she’s blogging for several social media websites, and composing her first book of poetry, entitled "Autobiography of Skin. Follow her on Twitter @ladymspeaks
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