Is he in love with me? Love is a sticky messy thing. There are several different kinds of love, and to confuse things on top of all that, people love in their own weird ways.

I went through a stage in my life at one point where I would become really obsessed with women. If you asked me back then if I was in love I would have told you that yes, absolutely. But although experts tell us that obsessional love isn’t healthy — wouldn’t it be awesome if we could all wave our magical wands and become healthy? In an ideal world.

Sometimes some of us can only love in the only way that we know how, be that obsessional, sexual, distant, healthy or the variety of others out there. It’s how we get by in life.

So I’ve compiled a little list of “general” ways in which men fall in love with women. Mainly through my own experience of course, and from what I’ve observed through others. Don’t listen to what he tells you, listen to what he “does.” Actions speak far louder than words, we can tell you a truckload of rubbish but we certainly can’t hide what we do. That’s for sure.

Is he in love with me? Well, he’s present.

By god is he present. Some guys will even be in your face present to the point that you can’t breathe. But whoever it is that you’re wondering whether he’s in deep, even if he’s the most introverted and distant person the world can meet, he’s present.

By that I mean he will be around you when he can. He calls you daily, and even after a long day at work, you will be the first person he wants to be around. From my own personal experience, being in love requires a great amount of thinking about you, so he will be around you as much as he can. You’ll be the first thing he thinks about when he wakes up and the last thing he thinks about going to bed. Perspectively men think about a lot of things, but it’ll be in there, trust me.

This is a sure-fire way to understand Is he in love with me. How present are they in your life? Are they with you daily? Drops you a DM over messenger daily? Men that call in on you in some form daily are generally thinking about you.

The way he looks at you

He will always be pleased to see you. I’ve been married to my wife for 12 years now, and I’m always the first person to wake up in the morning. When she wakes up I always greet her with a smile because I’m always pleased to see her. This is Twelve years later mind you, and yet I’m still happy to see her. You’ll spot this after a while. It’s not the excitement, or the spark some people talk about — it’s actually a big wide grin and the lighting up of eyes. You’ll know after a while.

See, after the excitement fades, and the butterflies go that’s when the hard work begins. And if he’s still giving you wide happy eye-smiles, then you’re good to go.

He’s interested in your life and makes it a priority

So he’ll not just ask you about your day but he’ll find that book on the renaissance era you’ve been looking for, for ages because you were studying it at a night class you were taking.

If you’re looking to understand is he in love with me then he’ll pay particular attention to you.

There’s a difference between asking you about how your day has been, and say taking on board what you say. Of course most men (and women) don’t know about active listening and reading between the lines so no-one picks up subtle clues. But he’ll definitely think about that of which you’ve been actively talking about.

He’ll also support you in everything that you do. Your goals are now his goals too. Want to be a CEO? Great, I’m sure he’ll be right there behind you in that journey.

My wife always wanted to be a mother and have a family. Now that she has that she quit work and concentrates on building up the foundation of Alex. That’s fine. I totally support that dream. And there’s always something really awesome about having my dinner on the boil when I get finished with work.

And most importantly you aren’t second guessing him

I can’t stress this enough, but men that love you, you absolutely won’t be worrying about a thing. You won’t be worrying if he’s going to call, text, or be with you tonight. You’ll just know. You’ll just feel secure and looked after — and hopefully he should be feeling the same.

When love is involved there’s no childish games or worrying about anything. He’s just completely into you. Is he in love with me if you just know? Yes.

I mean it’s not all roses and fluff, even my wife and I have our spats and arguments, but even when it’s inconvenient for him you’ll know he has your back.

And lastly he has your back

Honestly? Does he big you up when you aren’t there? If he catches his friends talking trash about you does he correct them? Does he re-evaluate his friendship with people that always talk bad about you?

Us men get very defensive when those we love are threatened. You will feel the tension in the room most definitely. So you’ll have seen him defending you in some way most definitely.