10 Ways to Signal Your Love
1. MAKE A DECISION.
Look, this list works from four principles, crafted from four gerunds: making, giving, doing, saying. That is the order of things, too. Making is first.
First thing: make a decision. For instance, decide: you are not afraid (not afraid to pick out flowers, or to say what you think). Decide: you are not worried about yourself (and what you might or might not get from this endeavor). Decide: you don't deserve anything from love, so you expect nothing. (This, friends, is power.) This allows you to walk the earth without giving up everything to a cultural concept currently defined by the characters sometimes played by Zach Braff, and consistently played by Kathryn Heigl, actors inhabiting characters who at the end of Act Two are crushed when love itself seems indifferent to their hard-won sense of romantic entitlement. It connotes confidence, makes every kindness a tacit invitation. Quid pro quo is best reserved for heavy petting, and shouldn't translate to matters of the heart.
So make a decision that recognizes that the only thing you can control is your own behavior.
2. MAKE FOOD.
When I first got divorced, a friend of mine gave me a tip on how to feed my kids on a work night. It was a very good tip about frozen skillet meals, which he sometimes made for his twin daughters when their mom was away. It seemed right and kind for him to look out for me in this way. It was so easy; I didn't even have to think about cooking. But the third time I served it, my younger son, Walter, eight at the time, balked. "It tastes like a freezer," he said. "It tastes like yesterday." I was a little miffed that he wasn't eating it, and I'm certain that I showed a flash of frustration. It hurts me to report that he started crying, probably scared by his hulking desperate prick of a father, who got pissed because he, the kid, was too smart to accept a plate of flash-frozen chicken penne. "Is this what you made for Mom?" he asked. "Is this why she doesn't love you?" I wasn't putting one bit of thought or care into what I was cooking. The kid knew it. Smart guy, always was. (Sorry, Walt, for those dopey efforts.)
It was not why she didn't love me, though. I know how to cook. I knew it then. I was the better cook really. I'd simply forgotten that the creation of food — palatable and well made — is an act of devotion first and foremost. It's exactly the sort of safe, selfless demonstrative act that love requires early on.
Observe what she likes. Stock your kitchen. Start with a small plate of at least three well chosen elements: olives, chocolate, expensive cheese. Like that. Move on to breakfast if you're lucky (learn how to cook an omelet), or to dinner's humblest offerings: a savory, soup, salad, bread, and expensive store-bought desert.
Don't apologize for your shortcomings as a cook. Making food is an assertion of capability. Even a bad meal, made for another, tells that person you will try, that you will come back stronger and better informed. Cook — as this web site itself asserts that you can — like a man.
3. GIVE A GIFT.
Pick it by laying your hands on it. This implies: getting off your ass and giving something that matters. Forget the Internet. Forget anything you can order over the Internet: flowers, perfume, suggestions for the reading club, shake-weights. The Internet is a gas cloud of binary code — long strings of ones and zeros. Don't give in to the coding.
Give her something off your dresser. Give her a drawer in your dresser. Give her an order of take-out sushi at work. Then, forgetting reciprocation entirely, assess how that makes you feel.
4. GIVE COMPLIMENTS.
Lead with one when you walk in the room. Pull her side for another, when you leave the room together. Mean what you say. Women listen to what you appreciate in them. Don't lie about her hair if you don't really like it. Pull her by the elbow and let her know you love her ass.
5. GIVE YOUR APPRECIATION.
I asked my girlfriend: How did your dad show your mom that he loved her? Her response: "Ceaseless appreciation of everything she did for him. He treated everything she did as if it were a surprise, as if it were the first time he'd ever had her chili or smelled her perfume. He noted every routine kindness. And he loved her the same way, consistently, even when she got fat."
Don't worry this last thing. Just appreciate what you have and it won't be an issue anyway.
6. MAKE A GESTURE OF YOUR VERY OWN.
When I was fourteen, I opened my family's refrigerator one evening and discovered a plate of what seemed to be antipasto, in which every piece of food on the plate — the prosciutto, the emmental, the crostini — had been cut in the shape of Valentine hearts. I stood there, staring at it, trapped in the obtuseness of my fourteenth year on the planet, assuming someone made this for me. I pulled it out, went and thanked my mom, who was watching network news on a black and white television. She smiled and said, "That's for me. I can't stand that salty meat, so I left it there all day just to look at it. That's how your father lets me know he loves me." She then told me to look at her dresser, and her nightstand. My father, apropos of nothing — no holiday, no anniversary — had, before leaving the house that morning, shaped everything on every flat surface into hearts. "It's his little thing. It's what he does," my mother said. "It's so corny, but it works."
I've never tried it. That was his material. But I got the point. Small gestures are a pleasure of love.
7. BE A TOP.
This is a sexual term, related to dominant positioning. Topping someone in sex is informative to a relationship, because there are ways that dominance and strength are a form of completion. Saying what you want, even gruffly, is a means of telling the person you are speaking to that you actually want them, particularly. The message here is: Be strong. Don't be constantly compliant and cooperative. Women want to be heard, but they don't want to push you around. So — despite all my urging to be humble, self-contained, to strip yourself of expectations — be honest about what you need, what you like and what you want. Don't force it, but don't back off either.
8. BE A BOTTOM.
Also a sexual term, related to taking the passive role. I'm not telling you to let her plow you with a strap-on. (Though float your own boat; I do not judge.) I'm talking about letting the needs of the other supercede the needs of the self. Surrender. Give in. Do what she wants, the way she wants it. You can be sure a good woman knows the value of a small surrender. Despite the moronic hegemony of lite-beer commercials in the framing of American male self-conception, there is nothing wrong with going shopping now and then, in reading a book she gives you, in listening to her expansive stories about conflicts at work. You want her to watch games with you, to watch you play softball, to sit around and eat wings once in a while, right? Lookie there, I'm in the middle of a Miller Lite commercial as we speak.
9. TELL HER WHAT YOU ARE.
Make a list of all your flaws, foibles, and missteps. Be honest. A legal pad is your best friend here. Just put your head down and admit your shortcomings, your weaknesses, your mistakes. Use numbers. Remember: Don't sell it. Just tell it. You will never be sorry you did, not five days later, or five years. Don't ask for forgiveness. This is an assertion, too, not an apology. If you're lucky, she'll be inspired to do the same. And the two of you will undo years of horseshit and prevarication because she's embarrassed she slept with her stepbrother when she was nineteen, or you didn't want to admit that the strap-on thing really does interest you.
Save your best stuff if you must, leave blank lines, whatever. But understand that if you are not willing to open up in this way, at least in some fashion, then you probably aren't in love. You might be worrying that telling her you still like YouPorn — Just once a week or so! And real people! Real women! Never the ones with porn stars! — will screw the pooch with her, then you're probably still worrying more about getting laid than falling in love.
10. JUST SHOW UP.
And tell her something. Deliver the message in person. Avoid texting, cellphones, e-mails. Walk to your car, drive across the city, find a parking spot, go into her office, suffer the niceties and small talk of her inane office workers, greet her, pull her to the side and tell her that you were thinking about how much you love the way she looks in her underwear. She'll know what you did to get there, that it meant something to you. She'll understand the geography you crossed to get to this point and apprehend the pure outlines of your desire.
Esquire
