Marcel Deer
How do you know if your man is actually in love with you?
Neuroscience and psychology have joined forces to look into the question of love, and what they’ve found is pretty amazing.
It seems that you can actually detect when someone loves you through both their behavior and personality changes.
So, if you want to find out the truth, here are eight ways to tell if a man loves you, according to psychology.
1) He needs to be with you
We know that connection and physical presence are crucially important in love. When you’ve got nothing else on your mind, all you can think about is being with your partner.
Now, scientists have actually mapped out what’s happening to make you feel this way.
If a man is in love with you, he’s going to feel like he needs you, like he needs to eat and drink. Just thinking about you is enough to activate the ventral tegmental area in his mid-brain that’s connected to meeting basic physical needs.
In other words, his brain is constantly telling him he should go get a dose of your company every time he thinks about you, talks to you, or looks at your picture.
So when he says he needs to be with you, he’s really not exaggerating!
2) He feels great when he’s with you
Well, you’d hope so, wouldn’t you?
But sometimes it feels like a man might hang around just out of obligation or if he’s trying to use you for sex or something else.
So look for clues that he’s really, really happy when he’s with you.
He might smile all the time or laugh and be a lot merrier than when he’s on his own or even with a group of other people.
This is because his brain is giving him all sorts of new signals.
First off, he’s getting more dopamine, a neurotransmitter that’s involved in bonding between mothers and children in most mammals. Being with you makes him feel happy and secure because of this brain chemical being released.
Maybe unsurprisingly, this great feeling is apparently similar to the high a person gets from cocaine, which maintains dopamine signaling for longer than normal!
On top of that, researchers have found through brain scans that adrenaline can be released when he simply talks about you. This can cause him to feel euphoria, so just imagine how great he feels when he’s actually with you!
When a guy who loves you thinks about you or is with you, his brain’s reward circuit, including the amygdala, hippocampus, and prefrontal cortex, goes into overdrive. This makes him feel pleasure just from your presence.
Pretty cool, right?
3) He’ll act a bit crazy
Unfortunately, Beyoncé isn’t the only one who gets a little crazy in love.
It turns out that men who are in love actually start to behave a little bit erratically and even badly.
Research shows that men get surges of more testosterone than usual when they’re in love, especially in the initial stages of their infatuation.
This testosterone does a few things, some of which you might already guess.
It seems to play a role in blocking the release of serotonin or making it less effective. This neurotransmitter is involved in a whole lot of things in your body, especially helping to regulate sleep, digestion, and mood.
So when his serotonin levels are off, there are going to be some big effects.
Most notably, men seem to become more aggressive when they’re in love. They also seem to express more stress and anxiety and even obsessive thoughts.
When you add all this up together, you get a picture of someone who’s going to be jealous and protective of you, willing to fight off others who might be trying to compete for your attention.
Hey, a little jealousy is a good thing, right?
Just make sure that you’re not sending him over the edge!
4) He’ll want to have sex with you
This sign that a man loves you is, unfortunately, a complicated one.
It turns out that increased testosterone can happen when a man is in love. Not only that, but researchers also found that men in love “show more activity in a region of the right posterior dorsal insula (an area correlating with penile turgidity and viewing of beautiful faces).”
In other words, you give him wood.
That might be happy news because if a man isn’t sexually interested in you, he may well not be in love with you. However, it’s also not a great sign necessarily because it doesn’t really help you differentiate between love and lust.
But maybe the next sign will.
5) He’ll want to cuddle
Sex is best when it’s followed by a serious cuddle session afterward, right?
So if a guy is just lusting after you, he may be ready to get out of there right after the main event is done in an example of the old hit it and quit it.
But if a man loves you, he’ll be surging on a wave of feelings afterward, not to mention brain chemicals.
Once again, dopamine comes into play, and this chemical is often called the “cuddle hormone” for good reason. This hormone is released both when we want something and as a reward for getting it.
It makes us feel happy, satisfied, and on top of the world.
So if a guy loves you, he’s going to feel really elated when he’s with you, almost like he’s on drugs.
Well, he is – cuddle drugs that his own brain is making in big batches!
6) He’ll be healthier
You may or may not notice that the man you suspect is in love with you is healthier than normal.
You’d have to know a fair bit about his medical history to be sure.
But once you’re together and he seems to be happy and possibly in love, he may give off signs of being in excellent health.
Why?
Well, it turns out that falling in love has actually been found to be related to immune system regulation. One study in 2019 found that people who were in love had increased immune system activation in response to microbial exposures.
This makes sense if you think about attraction, coupling, and mating. If you’d found a partner and were getting ready to mate, giving your immune system a boost would protect you from sickness and give you a better chance of mating successfully.
Another study found something even more interesting, though it was only in mice. In this case, researchers found that mice who had been pair-bonded and monogamous were less susceptible to lung cancer.
If this is also true for humans, it makes a lot of sense to find a great life partner, doesn’t it?
7) He’ll be more prosocial
If you’re not sure what it means to be prosocial, think about antisocial behavior as the opposite.
Antisocial behaviors are those that can cause harm to others or violate their rights. This can include crime, vandalism, and even lying and manipulation.
Prosocial behavior, then, is doing things that are positive for others and for your community, with anything from shoveling your neighbor’s driveway to volunteering at a soup kitchen as examples.
But why would being in love make a guy do more of these prosocial things? Is it all about impressing to try to win your favor?
Not according to research into prosocial behavior.
Apparently, when people form more and deeper bonds with others, they tend to become more prosocial in general. And what represents a deeper pair bond than love?
When your guy really feels connected to you and appreciated by you, he’ll experience less angst and anger directed at the outside world. He may even start to kiss puppies and pet babies!
8) He’ll be good at guessing what you want
If you think about a great partner, some of the qualities you’d probably want them to have are attentiveness and caring.
Well, this is what you’ll normally find in a man who loves you. He’ll show that he cares by paying attention to you and your needs.
Scientists have actually discovered some of what’s going on in his brain that helps him do this.
We have brain cells that have been called “mirror neurons” because they help us understand and reflect other people’s actions and states of mind.
These mirror neurons show more activation when they watch or think about their serious partners compared to other people. People show signs of increased attention and recollection as well.
This adds up to mean that people who are in deep relationships have more consideration for their partners.
That means that your man will have a greater ability to know what you want and need.
Conclusion
I hope these eight ways to tell if a man loves you, according to psychology, are seriously eye-opening and help you find out what’s what.
I can’t wait to see what science will teach us next about human behavior!
