VLOG—A Minute with Steven

Should Men Say “I Love You” to One Another?

Here’s an interesting Valentine’s Day question: Should men say “I Love You” to one another?

Men certainly need to be emotionally healthy, and expressing feelings helps accomplish that. Some of those feelings are very deep, such as love, and they should be expressed too.

Love isn’t the only deep feeling. Hate, anger, grief, sorrow, etc. can also have deep roots.

I think there are right ways and wrong ways to express all these deep feelings. We are all aware of both constructive and also destructive ways to express anger. I think the same goes for expressing love. If you genuinely feel it, and your friend is receptive to hearing about it, then it could further cement your bond.

But if your love is mixed up with other feelings, or they’re not exactly comfortable with their own feelings, then your expression of love could make things complicated.

A related point: typical male behaviors such as teasing and busting chops, are not of themselves bad or harmful.

Boys need them to toughen up and become strong men. If the teasing is done by other men who love them, then it’s very constructive. If it’s not done by people who love them, or if it’s done by people who love them but is not done and sensitively respectively, then it’s destructive.