Love is always a torrent of feelings and emotions to which we do not always know how to react. That is why knowing if we are starting to feel for someone can be much more complicated than it seems.

In this article we will talk specifically about falling in love in the female sex and we will see some of the main keys to recognize the signs of this psychological phenomenon. So… how do you know if you are in love? In the following lines we will deal with it in a summarized way.

How to tell if you are in love: signs of infatuation

Love produces effects in us that can be grouped into three categories: cognitive signals, physiological and emotional signals, and behavioral signals. All of these are described below, and are typical regardless of whether we are attracted to a man or a woman.

However, keep in mind that none of these signs are in themselves sufficient to confirm that you are in love ; they serve, more than anything, as a guide, and the more they are fulfilled the greater the possibility that love has indeed emerged.

1. You become alert every time you see that person

This is the typical sign that appears when we are in the initial stages of falling in love, but as time goes by it disappears. This is a sign of falling in love that appears when you know relatively little about the other person .

Of course, it is also perfectly possible to fall in love with someone you have known for a long time, which means that in these cases this sign does not appear and that does not mean that there is no love.

2. You create occasions to be together

This is another typical sign, and it occurs in both men and women. However, in the case of women there is a stigma attached to gender roles that makes many of them feel uncomfortable about being more direct than men. For this reason, it is very common for them to create occasions to get closer indirectly to the person they are interested in.

3. You create plans for the future

Another trick for knowing if you are in love is to check if when that person is not there, he or she also occupies your thoughts. And the way this is typically reflected is by fantasizing about future plans , imagining a reality in which you form a solid and happy couple.

This exercise of imagination usually appears spontaneously, without premeditation, in people who are in love. For example, in the dead hours when there is nothing to do, or even while doing a very routine job in which it is not necessary to pay much attention to what is beyond our body and we can direct our attentional focus towards the interior of our mind.

4. You are very worried that she might suffer

Love does not only have elements related to illusion and positive thoughts about what can happen in the future. There is also concern about what might happen to the other person , even if that is not objectively very harmful to them.

For example, if the nerves before an exam make the person we’re looking at feel distressed, the mere fact that this discomfort exists will already make us feel bad, something that probably doesn’t happen to us with other individuals.

5. Conversations lengthen effortlessly

When there are nerves and you don’t know that person very well, it is normal that it takes effort to start a conversation and the first few minutes have passed, but once this step has been taken, the dialogue flows easily.

However, this fact is not exclusive to falling in love ; it also happens when we like someone very much, so it must be considered a necessary but insufficient sign that there is love. The only exception to this is when the other is not interested at all in relating to us, or when physical or psychological alterations come into play that affect the ability to communicate with people in general.

6. The idea appears that this person can be trusted

This is another sign of love. When a strong affective bond has been established, we move on from trying to hide all our defects (something typical of the phase in which we try to seduce the other person because we like him/her and we don’t want to generate rejection) and we start to value transparency and honesty more .

7. Using free time to be together is a good thing

Even when we like someone very much, we most often don’t like the idea of always being with that person in our free time .

On the other hand, when true love is involved (or at least a love as intense as that associated with relationships), the prospect of doing so seems good to us.

But even in the strongest relationships, each partner needs his or her space, so it’s normal to want to be alone sometimes.

Bibliographic references:

  • Laurie, Timothy; Stark, Hannah (2017), “Love’s Lessons: Intimacy, Pedagogy and Political Community”, Angelaki: Journal of the Theoretical Humanities, 22 (4): 69-79.
  • Helen F. (2004). Why We Love: the nature and chemistry of romantic love.