How men fall in love – The seven stages of love

Stage 1 – Appreciation

This is all about physical appearance and instant attraction. Now this should clear the doubts out for women though. Men are rather shallow when it comes to getting attracted at first sight.

While women may fall in love in the first conversation, men are attracted to a woman only for her physical aspects, and nothing else.

Physical appearance is paramount for men, but it may not necessarily be the entire package. Each guy has his own preferences in what he likes about a woman, be it her face, her legs, her smile or even the way she runs her hands through her hair.

A guy may not even know what it is about a girl that he likes, but if he finds something attractive in her, he may experience the appreciation stage. 

Stage 2 – Infatuation

Men appreciate a lot of women on a daily basis. They try to steal second glances or get a girl’s attention all the time. But it’s not always a success, either because he’s not trying hard enough or because the woman’s just not interested in him. The infatuation stage of how men fall in love is also the wooing stage of love for men in the dating game.

A man may appreciate a lot of women, but he doesn’t really get infatuated by all of them. If he appreciates a woman, and is interested in wooing her or pursuing her, he enters into the infatuation phase.

A man may pursue a woman in various ways, but if she doesn’t accept his advances he usually forgets the girl as just another attractive girl he wanted to go out with. It’s easier for a man to like a girl one day and forget he ever liked her the next because he has so many stages to deal with before he even makes up his mind on falling in love.

Stage 3 – Attraction

If an attractive girl reciprocates to a guy’s advances, he enters into the attraction stage of love. Until this stage, a guy can walk away from a girl without any pain or heartbreak even if the girl rejects him. He’s not really trying too hard, and he’s not really fallen in love to care about a rejection when he’s just trying to get lucky.

But if a girl does show the slightest sign of reciprocation or interest in the guy, or even if he assumes she’s into him, the guy digs deep into this stage, the attraction stage. In this stage, he decides to pursue the girl and make her like him. 

Stage 4 – Impression

Understanding how men fall in love is complicated stuff, but quite frankly, he’s nowhere close to falling in love right now even in this stage. All he wants to do is make the girl like him. He shows off his mating potential to her. He plans dates and splurges on gifts to please the girl. He’s definitely not in love, but he does want something good to come out of this stage of impressions.

Stage 5 – Conviction

If a guy’s successfully breezing through the different stages of love, he’d start to wonder if there’s something more in the air. But instead of falling in love with the girl, all he’s worried about is how to convince the girl to fall in love with him.

He would really like the girl in this stage and would definitely want to go out with her, but the uncertainty would still confuse him and he would not be at ease until he’s certain the girl likes him.

This stage is especially prominent when a guy falls in love with a friend. He can’t really try to impress her by buying gifts or taking her out on dates, but yet, he wouldn’t be able to stop pondering over how to convince the girl to go out with him. In this stage, all a guy cares about is how to get the girl to like him.

Stage 6 – Reaffirmation

If he’s able to convince the girl and make her fall in love with him, he’s a happy man. He likes where the dating game is heading.

But until now, in his pursuit of getting the girl to like him, he’s not asked himself if he really likes the girl and whether he actually wants to go out with her. Until this stage of love, getting the girl to like him was a goal he’s been focused on. Once the girl is in love with him, only then does a man seriously start to consider if he wants to have a relationship with the girl who now loves him.

It’s a selfish move, but it’s something evolution has taught all male species. “Don’t waste time thinking. Spend your time searching for more places to bust a nut.”

Now that the girl is in love with him, he takes a couple of days to sit back and weigh the pros and the cons of being in a relationship with that girl. Does he really love the girl too? Will he be happy with her? Is she the woman he wants and needs?

Stage 7 – He’s ready to love

If a man’s convinced that he truly likes the girl and wants to be with her, he enters this final stage of love where he’s ready to fall in love with the girl. On the other hand, if he’s not really convinced that the girl is the right mate for him, he may start avoiding her or losing interest in pleasing her because of his confusion.

Ever dated a really great guy who started behaving like a jerk a couple of weeks into love? Well, you know what happened now, don’t you?