"I adore you"

[35and3]

My sister has been dating someone for a few months and he's said this to her a few times, not said the L word though. Is it the same?! I think it's less and love is the next step but I don't want to be negative for her. They're in their late 30s btw!

I think there's a whole load of over-thinking and over-stressing in general about when to use the "love" word. It's been turned into this massive deal, and people turn themselves into knots about whether they really love someone or not...Is it "true love" or just "really, really like"... or something in between?!

And it's not helped by the attitude of some MNers who seem determined to dictate their rigid "right" timeframe on it , with withering words for those who dare step outside these boundaries....

In general, for the "love" police, before six months is seen as either "immature misconstruing of lust as love or manipulative love-bombing".... and more than nine months is viewed as "a commitment phobic and you're just not into them".

We should all chill out about it.... The over analysis of when to use the "l" word causes more unnecessary angst than almost anything else in the early days of relationships.

And saying "I adore you" is obviously a way of saying "I love you" without saying "I love you", precisely because we place so much store on the phrase, even when there's
no real consensus about what "love" is anyway. It's all daft.

And there's a tendency to rationalise love, as in "you can't love them yet as you don't really know them" as though feelings (and love is a feeling at the end of the day) are intellectual constructs.

I guess I don't. But if you are not seeing each other atleast once a week after a few months of dating again I am not really sure what the point of the whole thing is meant to be.