Across cultures, men say 'I love you' first

Saying 'I love you' for the first time can be exciting and anxiety-inducing in equal measure. Professing love is often seen as a significant step in a relationship, so being the first to do it can be a terrifying prospect. What if they don't say it back?!

While gender stereotypes may lead us to believe that women are more likely to say 'I love you' first, new research from a global team of academics suggests this may not actually be the case. Writing in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, they find that, across multiple countries and cultures, men are more inclined to confess first.

Participants were 3,109 adults from Australia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, France, Poland, and the UK. Just over 70% were women, and 85% were heterosexual. After providing demographic data, participants completed several online questionnaires. 

Firstly, participants completed a six-item questionnaire about love confessions, including questions such as which partner said 'I love you' first in their most recent relationship. They then indicated how long into the relationship they began to think about saying they were in love, when they said 'I love you', and when their partner said it. Finally, they were asked how happy they felt when hearing their partner say 'I love you', and when they felt it was acceptable to confess love in a new relationship. 

The next questionnaire looked at experiences in close relationships. Participants were presented with statements such as "I prefer not to show a partner how I feel deep down" or "My desire to be very close sometimes scares people away," and asked how much they agreed or disagreed on a seven point scale. Based on their responses, participants were coded as more 'anxiously attached' (people who are preoccupied with the availability and responsiveness of partners) or 'avoidantly attached' (people who don't like to rely on others and seek distance, rather than closeness, in relationships). 

Surprisingly, in six of the seven countries investigated, participants reported that men were more likely to confess love first in relationships than women, though a greater proportion of women than men reported this was the case. There was no significant gendered difference in the time period in which participants thought about confessing love: women, on average, thought about confessing love 77 days into a relationship, while men thought about it 69 days in. Love was actually confessed 107 days into a relationship for men, and 122 for women. Unsurprisingly, both men and women generally reported being happy to hear these declarations.

Attachment style didn't seem to play a big part here — except in one instance. There was a negative relationship between avoidant attachment style and happiness at hearing 'I love you', and a positive relationship between anxious attachment style and hearing it. This makes sense: avoidant attachment is often characterised by a seeking of distance and a fear of closeness, while anxiously attached people fear abandonment, and are likely to seek the perceived commitment and strength of feeling a declaration of love gives. 

The team note that caution should be taken when interpreting the data, particularly on the relative difference in days. Many participants reported declaring love on the same day, and may also have had a "fallible recollection" of the exact timing of their confession. Although there was a strong geographical spread covered in the study, neither Africa nor Asia were covered in this study. Future research could explore a wider range of locations, as well as taking into consideration cultural ideas about love, commitment, and attachment. 

This study also focused primarily on cisgender, straight-appearing couples, so further investigations including non-straight, trans, nonbinary, or knowingly intersex participants could expand these findings in new directions. 

But, overall, regardless of the locations that were included in the study, men were more likely to say 'I love you' first – and more likely to think it first, flying in the face of gendered stereotypes. These findings may help us reconsider assumptions we hold about gender and love, or perhaps inspire a few further confessions from those not wishing to wait an average of 100+ days to hear those special words. 

Read the study in full: https://doi.org/10.1177/02654075221075264