How Long Does it Take to Fall in Love?

July 16, 2013March 21, 2020 notsosexinthecity Commitment, dating, falling in love, heartbreak, love, Moving On, Plenty of Fish

4.5-minute read

Warning: very brief (in-passing) mention of domestic violence/abuse.

Are you in a relationship?

If you are, how long into that relationship did you realise you had fallen in love with the other person?

Following on from that, how long were you with that person before you eventually told them that you loved them?

I fall in love at the drop of the hat, and not just with men: with shoes, an outfit, a pair of earrings, a friend, a movie, a song, you name it … And I don’t just fall IN love at the drop of a hat: I also fall OUT of love pretty quickly too. Things can change from 100mph to a flat-stop in no time at all when I get the ‘ick’ or sense something isn’t right, but it can just as easily go from a flat-stop to 100mph in no time at all, too.

Take One Ball as a classic example.

One minute I was falling hopelessly in love with One Ball, after just a couple of months, wanting to shout from the rooftops how I felt about him, but in a matter of weeks, things fell apart. The things I loved about him soon turned into the niggly little things that turned me off about him and before long, I didn’t want to be in his company at all.

But with The Hubby, it didn’t matter what he did, I would continue to love him anyway — and I fell in love with him at the drop of a hat too. I never got the ‘ick’. Even when things went spectacularly downhill, I didn’t fall out of love with him or change the way I felt about him at all. I loved him through thick and thin, good and bad … though mostly bad. Even when that man punched me in the face, I loved him. I shouldn’t have done but I did. And the same can be said for Big Love. There were hundreds of times I should’ve left him before I actually did, but love is love … and when it sticks, it really fucking sticks.

I have known Jock for 34 days.

34 days ago, he sent me the first message on Plenty of Fish, but we have spent a considerable amount of time together in those 34 days. They haven’t been regular dates. In fact, I’m not sure we’ve actually ‘regularly’ dated. It almost feels as if we just jumped right into relationship-style behaviour, choosing camping and beers over dinner and champagne.

On date five, Jock told me he was falling for me. But date five actually felt like it was like date ten, or something like that. We had an 11-hour first date; a 5-hour second date; 24-hour third, fourth, and fifth date; a 5-hour sixth date; and then a 24-hour seventh date.

That’s 117 hours of date.

Almost five whole days spent together in just one month of starting our relationship.

That’s a lot, right? We’ve basically had a vacation away together already.

Sometimes, it feels completely natural to let myself get carried away with L-word thoughts and this man like we’ve been together for six months instead of one. But each time I do, I have to remind myself to come crashing back to earth with a bump. Do I really think I might be falling in love with him? Or is this going to be like One Ball all over again, where I think I’m in love but I’m really not? I hope it’s not the latter but you know how quickly things can change with me.

And I can’t forget about one very important factor here: I broke up with One Ball because I didn’t feel as though I was ready to fall in love again after my big breakup with Big Love. Our breakup devastated me. It wasn’t like I just had to move out and start living without him: I had to start my whole fucking life again, moving from one side of the world to the other, and moving back in with my family. No job, very few of my old friends, no money, no boyfriend, no prospects. It was a VERY tough relationship to try and get over but the breakup was even worse, and I’m still not entirely sure I’ve managed it. Will my Big Love baggage follow me through into this relationship with Jock like it did with One Ball?

But Jock isn’t like One Ball. In fact, he’s quite the opposite. He’s spontaneous and outrageous and totally unpredictable — but as much as I love those things, I also hate those things. But I don’t really hate them because I love him/am falling in love with him … or am I?

He’s bonkers to be around sometimes, and a truckload of fun too. Like the other day when his moustache bristles randomly started annoying him out of nowhere so he rushed into the bathroom and shaved all of his facial hair off, completely out of the blue. He looked totally different … and not like the man I’d just started calling my boyfriend. I can’t wait until it grows back.

And then where was the time he randomly decided to dye his hair red … on the same day he was due to meet my mother. Thankfully, she’s used to greeting me with a brand new hair colour each time, so in her words, we are “well-matched in the crazy department” and “male and female versions of each other”.

He has the weirdest sense of style I’ve ever seen, with a closet full of clothes I definitely wouldn’t have bought for him myself, but he manages to pull off the weirdest and wackiest outfits with ease. Maybe it’s the weird hair colour, or the ever-changing facial hair, or the quirky tattoos, but it just works. My wacky boyfriend. I simply adore calling him my boyfriend.

But is he a boyfriend I love?

I have a very strong connection with Jock, in ways that are definitely more than sexual, so I believe myself to be falling in love with him. But what is love? And how do you really know when you’re in love? And when it is acceptable to say it out loud, or to the other person?