There is no
knowing if someone really is in love or isn't when they do not show their
feelings. There is a difference between lack of love and not showing your love,
yet, sometimes we find it really hard to discover what the truth is. People
whose love is not manifested clearly tend to be the ones who try to avoid being
hurt. Yet, everyone needs a real bond ultimately because that's what we want by
nature. If you act like you don't care, it may be your partner assumes love
lacks there and moves on to someone who is capable of showing what they feel.
Concealing
what you feel can be more hurtful to you than being open and expressing your
affection in various ways, because concealment damages trust and puts the
relationship under severe pressure causing your partner wonder and question the
value and reason of that relationship. You don't want that, definitely. Some
people, especially men, take pride in their strength of being invulnerable emotionally.
However, this is exactly the way to make your partner feel unloved and
unwanted. Men need to be respected in the first place, but women need to be
reassured of being loved. This makes a whole world of difference.
Philip
Zimbardo in his book Man Disconnected
says "The emotional distance between guys is one that resides in the
context of warrior societies or the fighting classes. Men will communicate to
other men that they care but that there is a fine line that emotions cannot
cross."
This must be the root of the problem of men being incapable of
expressing their love even if they have deep feelings. There's no fine line
with women, though. Women are frustrated when they try to get close to a man
who constantly sabotages their effort. However painful it is to give up someone
you highly esteem and want to gain appreciation from women will do it if they
see no way.
In theory,
it seems so simple to be open and trustful, and it does not require much effort
to receive love from someone who is willing to give it to you. Yet, often it
does not seem to work. And the reason must be men's difficulty in finding
common ground with women due to their habit of refraining from any display of
emotion, especially the kind of display women expect. Of course, there are
subtle ways to express love and emotion so each of us needs to learn and
recognize where there is affection and where there is none. Therefore everyone
needs to make double effort to discover how things are so that you do not take
steps based on your imagination. That makes love a hard game that requires
skill to play and sometimes you lose and have to learn the hard way. But
eventually you'll find yourself master of the game, rules understood, with a
better chance at success.
