When a Man Falls In Love: How Men Fall in Love & the 7 Stages

Want to know what goes through his mind when a man falls in love? Here are the 7 stages how men fall in love, and everything else you need to know!

When women fall in love, it’s filled with bursts of happiness and miss-you texts. When a man falls in love, well, it’s just different. So how do men fall in love and what really goes on in a man’s mind?

For men, falling in love is a happy experience, but love doesn’t really kick in for a while. While women may experience an intense surge of affections as soon as they realize they like a guy, the mind of men doesn’t usually really work that way.

[Read: Infatuation vs love – 14 ways you can tell the difference]

How do men fall in love

Do men and women fall in love or fall for each other in a completely different way? Well, love is love, and we all love each other in similar ways. BUT where it gets different is how men approach falling in love.

To a man, dating is a conquest. He may be dating with the intention of finding the one who’s a great match for him. But no matter how hard he tries, his evolutionary instinct kicks in as soon as he’s on a date. And irrespective of whether he actually sees the girl as a potential life partner or not, he tries to woo her and impress her.

Of course, there’s the side quest opportunity of sleeping with her and sowing his wild oats. But when he dates a girl, he’s not trying hard to see if she’s the one. He’s only trying desperately to make sure he’s able to get the girl to fall for him. [Read: How guys flirt – 15 subtle things guys do to impress a girl]

So how quickly do men fall in love?

To a girl, it may seem almost instantaneous! He pursues you, he woos you, he tries to seduce you, and he even professes his love for you. Sometimes, he does all of these within the first few dates! WTF?!

To a girl’s eye, all of these clearly signal the signs of a man falling in love, and falling in love hard. But no matter how smitten he may seem *and men actually believe they’re falling in love too*, it’s still him and his wooing game that’s trying to impress you in full gusto. [Read: 16 signs he wants you bad and is irresistibly attracted to you]

Do men fall in love when they miss you?

Most girls assume the more she sticks around in person around a guy, the harder he’ll fall for her. But honestly, it only makes a guy take her easy because she’s easily available.

What works instead, is going out on dates often, but making sure you give him a lot of space. Don’t just vanish from his life though! [Read: 15 classy and powerful ways to make a guy go crazy over you]

Stay away in person, but stay on his mind! Make sure you’re still on his mind, either by staying active on social media or Instagram, flirty short texts to say hello, or by just having a great life where you’re out and about all the time.

If you’re busy having fun and meeting people, that’ll only make him want to pursue you harder because he sees you as a big catch and “some other guy could date you”, which will make him fall even harder for you. [Read: Tired of chasing? Here’s how to make a guy want you instead]

Why do guys run away when they fall in love

Ah, the big question! Now you’ll completely understand the psychology behind how men fall in love and why men run away, when you get to the 7 stages of love for men below. But when a man dates you, he isn’t falling in love with you, he’s only trying really hard to make YOU fall in love with him.

Once he’s sure you’re falling for him, literally, that’s the first time he actually asks himself if he even likes you, and wonders if he sees you as a potential dating partner. And this is when most girls get confused by a guy’s behavior. [Read: Why men pull away – The real reasons why he’s so distant and what you can do]

You see him pursuing you in a frenzy, and just as you start to give in and start falling for him “because he’s in love with you”, you see guys running away when you assume they’re already in love with you. That’s not because he’s scared to commit, but he’s considering the idea of being in a relationship with you for the first time. If he runs, now you’d know what that means. [Read: 17 sordid signs you’re just a hookup and nothing more to a guy]

The guy in love – What does a man think when they fall in love?

The first thought – PANIK! That’s right, when a man first starts genuinely falling for a girl, he’s a bit apprehensive and confused. Is she worth “settling down”? Is she really the one? All of the same questions you’d ask yourself over the first couple of dates. Only, the guy waits way, way longer than the first few dates to even ask himself the same questions.

But if he’s convinced you’re worth it, you can expect him to give in completely and fall in love with you, truly, madly, deeply, all in the same ways that you’d fall for him. But as you’d see below, this doesn’t really happen until the final stage of falling in love for him. [Read: The truest signs a man is in love – 17 gestures that are way louder than words]

How men fall in love – The seven stages of love for men

Now that you have a clear idea about how men date and fall in love, understanding why they run sometimes, and behave so smitten at other times, may start to make sense to you.

But if you want to completely understand a guy’s mind as he falls in love, check out the 7 stages of love for men, and find out how men fall in love and the different stages they experience. [Read: 21 ways to charm a guy into seriously falling in love with you]

Stage 1 – Appreciation

This is all about physical appearances and instant attraction. Now this should clear the doubts out for women though. Men are rather shallow when it comes to getting attracted at first sight.

While women may sometimes fall in love in the first conversation, men are attracted to a woman initially only for her physical aspects, and almost nothing else.

Physical appearance is paramount for men, but it may not necessarily be the entire package. Each guy has his own preferences in what he likes about a woman, be it her face, her legs, her smile or even the way she runs her hands through her hair. Now, just to be clear, physical appearance doesn’t have to mean the body of a Victoria’s secret angel or the face of the sexiest celebrity. If you make his heart skip a jump in the first conversation, chances are, he’ll think something about you is stunningly attractive! [Read: 25 things guys find sexy and attractive about a girl]

A guy may not even know what it is about a girl that he likes, but if he finds something attractive in her, he may experience the appreciation stage.

Stage 2 – Infatuation

Men appreciate a lot of women on a daily basis. They try to steal second glances or get a girl’s attention all the time. But it’s not always a success, either because he’s not trying hard enough or because the woman’s just not interested in him. The infatuation stage of how men fall in love is also the wooing stage of love for men in the dating game.

A man may appreciate a lot of women, but he doesn’t really get infatuated by all of them. If he appreciates a woman, and is interested in wooing her or pursuing her, he enters the infatuation phase.

A man may pursue a woman in various ways, but if she doesn’t accept his advances he usually forgets the girl as just another attractive girl he wanted to go out with. It’s easier for a man to like a girl one day and forget he ever liked her the next because he has so many stages to deal with before he even makes up his mind on falling in love. [Read: Why do men like a chase and how to use it in your favor]

Stage 3 – Attraction

If an attractive girl reciprocates to a guy’s advances, he enters into the attraction stage of love. Until this stage, a guy can walk away from a girl without any pain or heartbreak even if the girl rejects him. He’s not really trying too hard, and he’s not really fallen in love to care about a rejection when he’s just trying to get lucky.

But if a girl does show the slightest sign of reciprocation or interest in the guy, or even if he assumes she’s into him, the guy digs deep into this stage, the attraction stage. In this stage, he decides to pursue the girl and make her like him. [Read: How to talk to a guy and make him like you]

Stage 4 – Impression

Understanding how men fall in love is complicated stuff, but quite frankly, he’s nowhere close to falling in love right now even in this stage. All he wants to do is make the girl like him. He shows off his mating potential to her. He peacocks, he plans dates and splurges on gifts to please the girl. He’s definitely not in love, but he does want something good to come out of this stage of impressions. [Read: What is peacocking and why men instinctively do this around women they like]

Stage 5 – Conviction

If a guy’s successfully breezing through these different stages of love for men, he’d start to wonder if there’s something more in the air. But instead of falling in love with the girl, all he’s worried about is how to convince the girl to fall in love with him.

He would really like the girl in this stage and would definitely want to continue going out with her, but the uncertainty would still confuse him and he would not be at ease until he’s certain the girl likes him.

This stage is especially prominent when a guy falls for a friend, or someone knows knows well. He can’t really try to impress her by buying gifts or taking her out on dates, but yet, he wouldn’t be able to stop pondering over how to convince the girl to go out with him. In this stage, all a guy cares about is how to get the girl to like him. [Read: 16 hush-hush signs your guy friend wants to have sex with you]

Stage 6 – Reaffirmation

If he’s able to convince the girl and make her fall in love with him, he’s a happy man. He likes where the dating game is heading.

But until now, in his pursuit of getting the girl to like him, he’s not asked himself if he really likes the girl and whether he actually wants to go out with her. Until this stage of love, getting the girl to like him was a goal he’s been focused on. Once the girl is in love with him, only then does a man seriously start to consider if he wants to have a relationship with the girl who now loves him.

It’s a selfish move, but it’s something evolution has taught all male species. “Don’t waste time thinking. Spend your time searching for more places to bust a nut.”

Now that the girl is in love with him or falling for him one day at a time, he takes a couple of days to sit back and weigh the pros and the cons of being in a relationship with that girl. Does he really love the girl too? Will he be happy with her? Is she the woman he wants and needs? [Read: Why do guys pull away before they commit? A guide to read his mind]

Stage 7 – He’s ready to love

If a man’s convinced that he truly likes the girl and wants to be with her, he enters this final stage of love where he’s ready to fall in love with the girl. On the other hand, if he’s not really convinced that the girl is the right mate for him, he may start avoiding her or losing interest in pleasing her because of his confusion.

Ever dated a really great guy who started behaving like a jerk a couple of weeks into love? Well, you know what happened now, don’t you? [Read: Why do guys distance themselves after intimacy? And what you need to do]

How to turn the dating game in your favor and make him chase you

Now that you know how men fall in love with a woman, this whole game may seem like an annoying truth. And it’s more annoying to know that men have to actually make women fall in love with them before they even think about going out with you, but that’s the way men fall in love and they really have no choice about it.

But if you really want to beat the guy in his own game, don’t make it obvious that you really like him at the very first instant. Keep it simple and play hard to get for a while. [Read: How to play hard to get with a guy and make it work for you]

Not giving in too easily, at least at the beginning, will make him work harder to win your love. And when he does finally win you over, he’ll never ever want to leave you because you’re such a tough catch to get or let go!

[Read: Don’t misunderstand playing hard to get – The LovePanky dating girl code all girls need to know]

Well, you may now know how men fall in love with women and the seven stages of love for a man. But remember this, when a man falls in love, it’s almost always because you made him work for your affection.