So you’ve been dating a girl for a while now. You’ve been to the movies, spent all night chatting and making out on the couch and seen the sun set together. You know your feelings for her are pretty strong, but do you really love her yet?

The problem is that there is a severe lack of vocabulary when it comes to matters of romance and sexuality (there’s not even an accepted term for muff that isn’t either poncey, rude or childish). My friend and I have had this problem a lot which is why we’ve coined the phrase ‘in like’. ‘In like’ now refers to that stage in a relationship where you’re head over heels about someone new but it’s still too much an infatuation, where it’s still too early on to say that you really love them.

You know what it’s like, you’ve been out clubbing all night and you’ve had a great time. You were running around topless while screaming ‘Eye of the Tiger’ at the top of your lungs when beauty struck you out of the corner of your eye. The most wonderfully attractive babe you’ve ever seen. And when you start chatting you realise that she likes you and that she has loads of interesting things to say. You get on like a house on fire and before you know it you’re grinding to the romantic sounds of ‘Smack My Bitch Up’ and sticking your tongue down your throat. From this point on all you can do is think about her, and stare at your phone fretting about whether or not she got your last text – you could text her to ask but then you might look desperate!

I’d easy to confuse this very powerful emotion with love and it can lead some guys to do some stupid things. Granted I have exceptionally stupid friends, but one of them got a girl’s face tattooed on his back. He’s in a mental institution now but moving on the point is that there’s no word to describe this emotion and it’s pretty hard to distinguish for that reason. It’s more than just liking someone, so my friend and I came up with the term in like. We used to be in like every week… but at least that way we knew what was going on and didn’t start offering to move in with every girl we met.

Here’s another difficult situation. Imagine you’ve been good friends with a girl for a long time and at the end of every text she puts ‘love you’ and you do the same (you girl). That’s fine, but what happens if that night you pull her. Tomorrow you send her a text but if you sign off with ‘love you’ you’ll likely get another text back two minutes later reading ‘DO YOU??’. Shit.

So you loved her a minute ago but now you’re not allowed to love her anymore, until about three months after you’ve been dating when it’s okay to once again to love her but with more gusto. Seems a bit weird. Then again if things go wrong after a month you’re never allowed to love her again. What’s up with that?

So there should be new words here too – some way to distinguish between platonic ‘friendship love’ and real, in deep, head-over-heels, skipping through the meadows in love. While we’re at it there should probably be another one two for loving your family (you love your sister? Ewwww!). Of course proposing new words for this would be futile, if you approach a girl and tell her you bedoogle her she’ll probably slap you. But chances are you’ve moved from platonic love to being in like.

So how do you know when you’re not in like any more? How do you know if it’s not platonic any more? Well it’s actually very hard. But while there’s no set duration for being in like, it can only really last so long before it peters out. If you’re in like with a girl who doesn’t text you back for two weeks you’ll be over it in no time, but if you’re in love and she doesn’t text you back for that long you may well already be preparing the noose. That’s if you’re rather dramatic, but you’re at least going to be pretty miserable and probably rather antisocial and unshaven for a while.

Part of the difference is that you’re not in like with a person, you’re in like with an idea, and chances are you don’t know that person at all really at this stage. Once you know everything about a person and you still pine while staring at your phone, then you’re starting to move into the love stage. If after learning everything about them you start to switch your phone off to avoid answering calls… then maybe reconsider your position.

Making life more difficult is that loving someone can feel very different depending on the person and on the situation. I remember personally that every time I’ve potentially been ‘in love’ I’ve realised that the previous time really wasn’t love at all, that only this time is the real deal. Each time it’s seemed more intense but in the past I haven’t really had anything to measure it against.

And sometimes I’ve been a wreck. Sometimes I’ve been a jealous angry ball of possessiveness who breaks things in his room (granted I was on a lot of bodybuilding supplements at point). That’s when I sing loud Alice Cooper songs about wanting to slice people’s names into my arms (I don’t actually do this though and that’s important to remember). Other times though I’ve been much more placid, other times I sit quietly and smile when a song reminds me of the girl that I love, or when I see butterflies mating in the wind and recall that time we joined the mile high club…

This depends far more on the person you love, and on the nature of your relationship with them – whether it’s a one of those fiery passionate relationships or whether it’s a tender and loving one. My advice is to go for the second by the way or you’ll probably kill yourself.

But fortunately despite these complications, more than just duration there are other ways you can tell if you’ve moved out of being in like and into being in love. When you feel down or have a bit of a cold who is it you want to hug you and make you feel better? When you’re in a bad mood and biting everyone’s head off, who’s the only person that makes you feel calm and happy again? When you get some good or exciting news (your book’s just been published, or that old geezer up the road is marrying a girl 20 years old) who is the first person you want to share it with?

Those questions are rhetorical and if you haven’t figured out that the answer should be the girl you’re dating then you’re pretty much a lost cause. If it the answer is her, and you find yourself spending ages writing her letters or editing pictures of her to see what she’d look like with red hair then you love her. If you smile or laugh inwardly because you remember something cute or funny she said then you’re in love. If you stop wanting to hang out with your mates as much and turn down the pub to go and watch crappy TV with her because they’re dicks and she’s the only person who makes you feel special and okay then you’re in love. If you fancy her just as much when she hasn’t washed for three days (in which case you might however be dating a skank) as you do when she’s tarted up for a date then you’re in love. If you wait outside her window then follow her to work, or wait for her to leave so you can go into her house and smell her underwear… then you’re a stalker. What the hell dude?

The realisation is something that might dawn on you over time or in a moment of bliss. You might find that for a while you’ve been trying to stop yourself blurting it out randomly. Don’t rush it and don’t fight it – there are no rules with love just as apparently there’s no vocabulary. If you say it too soon then it can put a strain on your relationship and chances are she’ll know you don’t mean it. If you say it too late then she’ll start getting restless and it’ll hurt her self esteem.

So if you’ve identified yourself as in love then congratulations, you’re more aware of your own emotions than 90% of men everywhere and next time you won’t confuse being in like with being in love. Now you just have to tell her how you feel. Good luck mate!

Mack LeMouse

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