# Saying "I Love You" at the end of phone conversations **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [November 19, 2009, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/saying-i-love-you-at-the-end-of-phone-conversations/518189 "2009-11-19T19:46:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![MeanOldLady](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/meanoldlady/32/10737_2.png) [@MeanOldLady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MeanOldLady)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2009, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/saying-i-love-you-at-the-end-of-phone-conversations/518189/41 "2009-11-20T15:58:29Z")
> [@Oni no Maggie](#): > > To the people who say “I don’t tell my sweetie I love him/her, I show them instead” - is there any reason why the two should be mutually exclusive? It doesn’t have to be, but I find it redundant to say “I love you” to the same person repeatedly every single day. We’ve already established that we love each other; can we stop saying it over and over again? I suppose some people just like hearing the words. I’m not one of those people. I like knowing that the person I love loves me. The words are intrinsically useless. ---
**Author:** ![picunurse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7bcc69/32.png) [@picunurse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/picunurse)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2009, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/saying-i-love-you-at-the-end-of-phone-conversations/518189/42 "2009-11-20T16:14:09Z")
My husband and I have been married for 10 years. We both say “I love you” in various ways several times a day including in the course of our 5-8 phone calls to each other. It’s not perfunctory in any way. He will sometimes wake up in the middle of the night and say “You have no idea how much I love you.” Then, fall back to sleep. I think you’d know if it was becoming mere habit. ---
**Author:** ![Blaster\_Master](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/cab0a1/32.png) [@Blaster\_Master](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blaster_Master)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2009, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/saying-i-love-you-at-the-end-of-phone-conversations/518189/43 "2009-11-20T16:22:19Z")
To all the stories of people saying, or almost saying “I love you” to someone else, well… that’s exactly what the sort of scenario that concerns me. That means it’s being said out of habit. How can something done out of habit have any intention behind it? > [@Oni no Maggie](#): > > To the people who say “I don’t tell my sweetie I love him/her, I show them instead” - is there any reason why the two should be mutually exclusive? Speaking for myself, I don’t think they’re mutually exclusive at all. To put my point more succinctly, I guess I would rather say it less often and be absolutely sure I say it with intention every time than say it more often and potentially say it without intention. So I do say it, but I don’t say it every time I hang up the phone or say goodbye; it’s pretty rare that I do for precisely the habit reason. Nor do I even necessarily respond to “I love you” with “I love you too”, even to my family or to a girlfriend, though I much more likely to do so in person. Regardless, you can be sure that when I do say it, I mean it. To give an analogy I’ve given before. Let’s imagine a relationship where a man decides he wants to do something nice for his girlfriend, so he brings her home flowers. That’s nice, it’s something special and meaningful. Now let’s imagine that somehow it becomes something established so that every Friday he brings her flowers. After having done so for a certain period of time, sure, it’s still a nice gesture and sure she still likes getting them, but he’s not longer doing something special, he’s maintaining a pattern and the act becomes all but meaningless to the point that it’s expected. What happens if he forgets on Friday? Of course she misses it, but in any other situation, she wouldn’t have that expectation. Moreso, now she’s left wondering if because he didn’t bring her flowers, maybe something is wrong or he doesn’t love her anymore… And worse for him, what if he wants to do a little something to make her feel special? Not the whole wine and dine thing, but just to let her know he was thinking about her and wanted to do something nice? He can’t just buy her flowers because, well, he does that already and it’s no longer special. Or a parallel scenario, imagine a woman who gets flowers sent to her from a creepy stalker-type guy. Do those flowers mean anything? I think words are very much the same way in that they don’t have any intrinsic value, they’re just a medium we use to express ourselves. I think it’s possible to say it a lot and mean it every time, like I could imagine a guy buying flowers for his wife fairly often, but if it becomes part of a habit or tradition, you’re no longer imbuing that meaning to it. If you say “I love you” every time you leave in the morning and when you talk on the phone, sure it’s nice to hear, but when you really come to a time when you want to express that… you just can’t. ---
**Author:** ![melodyharmonius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/melodyharmonius/32/21310_2.png) [@melodyharmonius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/melodyharmonius)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2009, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/saying-i-love-you-at-the-end-of-phone-conversations/518189/44 "2009-11-20T16:24:50Z")
It cracks me up that to this day, if I tell my brothers “I love you” at the end of the conversation, they struggle and seem taken by surprise. I’m a serial “I love you”-er. Like **BigT** , I think the world needs as many "i love you"s and hugs it can handle. I hug people when I see them, I hug them when I say good bye. I often end convos with friends with “love ya!” Some people have later told me that I might have been the only person who touched them or told them “i love you” in months or more. So I’ll never, ever regret saying it “too much.” Saying “I love you” only diminishes via repetition if you stop meaning it. ---
**Author:** ![TreacherousCretin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/treacherouscretin/32/476_2.png) [@TreacherousCretin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TreacherousCretin)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2009, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/saying-i-love-you-at-the-end-of-phone-conversations/518189/45 "2009-11-20T18:53:52Z")
> [@Ruby](#): > > The men that I know who don’t say it because it “loses its value” if said too much are the same men that aren’t demonstrative and loving toward their spouse anyway. How’s that for a broad brush. Broad and dead wrong, at least in my case. I almost never say “I love you” for reasons already stated, but family and friends will tell you that I’m _extremely_ demonstrative and touchy feely cuddly. Actions speak louder than words. . ---
**Author:** ![Patch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a183cd/32.png) [@Patch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Patch)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2009, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/saying-i-love-you-at-the-end-of-phone-conversations/518189/46 "2009-11-20T19:06:23Z")
> [@mauxlicious](#): > > My SO travels often for work. When she is gone (generally 3-4 nights a week)it is customary for us to speak on the telephone before we go to bed. At the end of these phone conversations we always say “I Love You” to each other. > > What do you think? Does making a habit of saying “I Love You” at the end of phone conversations make it any less meaningful through repetition? Or is it a comfort to hear these words regardless? What is your custom? > > I like it. We say it to each other fairly often otherwise and sometimes it is a genuine overflow of a gushy feel good emotion. The regularity of ending our phone conversations with it serves as a reminder to me that our romantic love is not only that feeling, but it is a commitment and a choice we have made to be together. I was thinking about my mom’s upcoming birthday while talking to my boss over the phone one day, and that’s how I closed the conversation. :eek: ---
**Author:** ![Vihaga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Vihaga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Vihaga)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2009, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/saying-i-love-you-at-the-end-of-phone-conversations/518189/47 "2009-11-20T21:21:28Z")
> [@Blaster\_Master](#): > > To give an analogy I’ve given before. Let’s imagine a relationship where a man decides he wants to do something nice for his girlfriend, so he brings her home flowers. That’s nice, it’s something special and meaningful. Now let’s imagine that somehow it becomes something established so that every Friday he brings her flowers. After having done so for a certain period of time, sure, it’s still a nice gesture and sure she still likes getting them, but he’s not longer doing something special, he’s maintaining a pattern and the act becomes all but meaningless to the point that it’s expected. I fail to see what’s wrong with making a habit out of doing nice things for your SO. Why does it have to be special? Why can’t it be a constant presence? I cook my husband breakfast most weekends because I like to and it’s a nice thing. I’m not going to create an artificial scarcity of doing nice things for him so it’s more special when I do… that seems stingy to me. I have a grandfather who doesn’t apologize for anything. When he majorly screwed up and apologized to the family, my grandmother fell all over him for it because it was so out of character. To me, that just makes him a jerk who realized he _really_ screwed up once. What’s wrong with setting the bar a little higher? As for the OP, I always do with my mom, and often with my husband, though not every time. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2009, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/saying-i-love-you-at-the-end-of-phone-conversations/518189/48 "2009-11-20T21:24:31Z")
I don’t know - why would anyone end a communication with a rote phrase expressing good feelings towards other? Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2009, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/saying-i-love-you-at-the-end-of-phone-conversations/518189/49 "2009-11-20T21:33:23Z")
I spent most of my youth and teenage years with no love. I had food and shelter and lots of clothes and lots of stuff but I rarely got any hugs and no one told me that they loved me. I could hear the words “I love you” 60 times a day as an adult and never get tired of it. The words are not useless to me, at all. I love the words. ---
**Author:** ![MeanOldLady](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/meanoldlady/32/10737_2.png) [@MeanOldLady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MeanOldLady)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2009, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/saying-i-love-you-at-the-end-of-phone-conversations/518189/50 "2009-11-20T21:39:28Z")
And if some random guy said “I love you,” would the words be useless? You know, I think I shall end conversations with people who I don’t love, but like well enough with “I find you to be pleasant. Good bye.” ---
**Author:** ![Mahna\_Mahna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e47c2d/32.png) [@Mahna\_Mahna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahna_Mahna)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2009, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/saying-i-love-you-at-the-end-of-phone-conversations/518189/51 "2009-11-20T21:47:56Z")
The Boy and I rarely do it. We’re pretty touchy-feely types, so it just seems redundant to say it. I’ve noticed that we do start to close phone calls with “I Love You” if one of us is away from home or if he’s working stupidly long hours at work, since when there’s almost no face-time with each other we have to say in words what we’d normally express through gestures. On the other hand, a coworker of The Boy’s is in a relationship with a girl that’s best described as… well… high-maintenance. A couple of times, said coworker forgot to say “I Love You” and immediately got a call back from the GF asking if something was wrong and didn’t he love her any more and did they need to have The Talk. :rolleyes: I really wonder how much meaning there is in the phrase if you have to ritualise it as ongoing proof that the relationship is okay. ---
**Author:** ![Picard\_Kills\_Kirk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/dec6dc/32.png) [@Picard\_Kills\_Kirk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Picard_Kills_Kirk)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2009, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/saying-i-love-you-at-the-end-of-phone-conversations/518189/52 "2009-11-21T02:27:52Z")
My ex-girlfriend and I used to say it all the time to eachother just out of habit. I had to really cut back on it though one night after a certain call. I was calling in an order to Papa Johns. The guy on the phone said “Okay, your pizza will be ready to pick up in 15-20 minutes.” I said “Okay thanks, love you. bye” and hung up the phone. My little brother just looked at me for a minute and said “did you just tell the pizza guy you loved him?” Picking up that pizza was probably one of the more awkward experiences of my life. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2009, 5:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/saying-i-love-you-at-the-end-of-phone-conversations/518189/53 "2009-11-21T05:07:12Z")
I like to hear the words. My husband and I ended phone calls with “Love you.” We ended fights that way, too. Being in the habit of being expressive and open is a good thing, in my book. ---
**Author:** ![Angel\_of\_the\_Lord](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/angel_of_the_lord/32/2949_2.png) [@Angel\_of\_the\_Lord](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Angel_of_the_Lord)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2009, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/saying-i-love-you-at-the-end-of-phone-conversations/518189/54 "2009-11-21T19:41:28Z")
My family has always said that to each other. I’ve always said it to significant others who’ve gotten to that stage. And, at work, because it’s so easy to say that reflexively, I get it once or twice a week. None of that cheapens it. ---
**Author:** ![elelle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f0a364/32.png) [@elelle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elelle)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2009, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/saying-i-love-you-at-the-end-of-phone-conversations/518189/55 "2009-11-23T01:24:47Z")
In a sense when my hon and I are far apart, we close of with “I love you, night night” It’s a good close phrase. Day to day, we have fun with it: " You know I love you, Motherfucker!" “You’re a son-of -a -goo gah-HELL, but I love you anyway!” “Shit, why do I love you anyhow Musta not gotta lotta…???” " Yadda yadda, hope that the work powers that be don’t listen in, cuz it’s a slap mess. ---
**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2009, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/saying-i-love-you-at-the-end-of-phone-conversations/518189/56 "2009-11-23T03:39:05Z")
My wife and I try to say it to each other every night. I travel a lot and if I’m talking to her and there are other people in the room, I always say something like “I think we’re on the same page on that issue” or “we are in agreement,” just to bust her butt a bit. ---
**Author:** ![CrazyCatLady](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/dfb087/32.png) [@CrazyCatLady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CrazyCatLady)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2009, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/saying-i-love-you-at-the-end-of-phone-conversations/518189/57 "2009-11-23T13:47:16Z")
I freely admit I end phone conversations with my loved ones with “I love you.” I live 5 hours from my parents, one of whom is a fatal vascular event waiting to happen, and talk to them on the phone once a week. **DoctorJ** and I aren’t the type to call each other at work unless it’s about something specific, so we talk on the phone about once a week if neither of us is out of town. If that frequency cheapens our feelings and actions for one another, call my whole family the McCheapersons. Something can be totally ingrained habit, even rote, and still not be meaningless. There are a million little things in daily life that are valid expressions of love, even if we no longer consciously think “I’ll do xyz to make this person happy.” When I buy the brand of canned beans or the flavored cheese or those little miniature marigolds he likes, I don’t sit there and think “Oh, he’ll like this.” I just see 'em and buy 'em like I’ve got a subliminal cue implanted. Likewise when he tailors seasoning dinner to what I like instead of what he likes…he does it automatically without thinking. If those little things aren’t cheapened and make worthless by being automatic, why would the words be cheapened? ---
**Author:** ![Mama\_Zappa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/71e660/32.png) [@Mama\_Zappa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mama_Zappa)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2009, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/saying-i-love-you-at-the-end-of-phone-conversations/518189/58 "2009-11-23T16:06:38Z")
I think it’s a great thing to repeat in phone conversations. The folks I just called at the doctor’s office were, I admit, a bit confused 😛 Guess I’ll reserve it for calls with the spouse and kids in the future 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Markxxx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5daacb/32.png) [@Markxxx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Markxxx)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2009, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/saying-i-love-you-at-the-end-of-phone-conversations/518189/59 "2009-11-23T16:19:33Z")
I have notice that Jewish people, at least the ones I know, do this a lot. It’s often odd, 'cause they’ll be having a disagreement over the phone and they arguing and one says, “OK fine have it your way I gotta go. I love you.” I guess the real question is does the indiscriminate use of the phrase “I love you,” diminish its overall value? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/saying-i-love-you-at-the-end-of-phone-conversations/518189.md?page=2)