24 Oct Are You in Love… or Just Hooked on Her Looks?
Reading Time – 4 minutes
Men mix up love with lust all the time. They meet a woman who hits every visual button, maybe the sex is great, and suddenly they’re “in love.” Except they’re not. They’re intoxicated by appearance and chemistry. That’s not evil—it’s biology. Physical attraction matters for men; it should. But if the only reason you’re there is because she’s hot and the sex is fire, you’re not in love. You’re in orbit around your own hormones.
Younger men get hit hardest. Under 24, it’s practically a rite of passage to develop one-itis for the first gorgeous girl who pays attention. Under 30, it’s still common. Older guys aren’t immune either; many divorce out of a long, dead monogamous relationship, taste freedom, date someone 20 and radiant, and boom—they swear it’s “true love.” No. It’s novelty, youth, and tight packaging. That’s fine to enjoy. It’s not love.
Love Is Internal, Lust Is Packaging
When you love a woman, you love who she is—her inner world, her temperament, her way of moving through life—not just how she looks this month. Attraction can be a component, a strong one, but it’s not the engine. If you remove the external packaging and your feelings evaporate, that wasn’t love. That was set design.
Most men won’t admit this. They’ll say, “No, no, I love her.” Great—then run two hard tests.
Two Tests Almost Every Man Fails
Test 1: The “Five” Test
Take the same woman—voice, personality, habits, everything identical—and imagine she’s a 5 in looks to you. Not to your friends. To you. Would you still be there? Would you tolerate her quirks, spend the money you spend, navigate the drama you tolerate? If the honest answer is “probably not,” you’re not in love with her—you’re in love with how she looks.
Test 2: The No-Sex Test
Same woman, same face and body, but you can never touch her sexually again—ever. You can hug, sit close on the couch, talk for hours. No kissing, no hands, no bedroom. Would you still commit to a life with her? If the answer is no, that’s clarity. You love the sex and the visual. That’s not a crime. Just don’t confuse it with love.
Most men don’t like these tests because they reveal something uncomfortable: the feeling you call love is often a mixtape of lust, novelty, ego, and convenience.
Staying for the kids is love—for the kids. It’s not love for your wife or girlfriend. Plenty of women white-knuckle their way through miserable marriages “for the children,” then file for divorce the second the youngest moves out. That wasn’t love for the man; it was duty. If you remove the kids from the equation and you’d be gone, call your feeling what it is: attachment, habit, logistics—not love.
Beauty Fades. Connection Doesn’t Have To.
Time is undefeated. The hottest girls from high school stayed stunning through their 20s, many into their 30s and 40s. Then the 50s arrive, and reality sets in. That’s life. Men change too—belly, hairline, energy, all of it. If your plan is to keep swapping partners every time age shows up, enjoy the paperwork and the emptiness. That’s not love; that’s leasing.
A better question: What’s the plan when your long-term partner is no longer at her visual peak? If the answer is “trade her in,” you never loved her. If the answer is “I’m still here because I love who she is,” now we’re talking. You can design your relationship however you want—monogamous, non-monogamous, OLTR (one long-term relationship) with side freedom, whatever fits your values—but if the core disappears the minute the mirror gets rude, that core was never love.
The Trap of NRE (New Relationship Energy)
Another reason men mislabel lust as love is NRE—the dopamine high at the start of a new relationship. Everything is exciting. The texting, the first trips, the private jokes, the discovery. NRE is rocket fuel… and it lies. It makes you feel deeper than you are. Then it fades, because it’s supposed to. If you “fell in love” within weeks, what you felt was probably NRE plus hotness. Real love is slow. It requires time, friction, and proof. Months at minimum. Years for many men. If your timeline is measured in weekends, it’s not love. It’s a thrill ride.
You don’t have to turn into a stone robot to stop confusing lust with love. You just need better filters.
- Give it time. Don’t use the L-word in the first few months, even if she does. Enjoy the infatuation. Let it breathe.
- Watch yourself after sex. Notice how your affection rises and falls with frequency and novelty. If your “love” drops when you’ve gone a week without the bedroom, it’s not love.
- Remove the visuals—mentally. Do the Five Test. Be brutally honest.
- Stress-test the connection. How do you handle disagreements? Can you tell the truth without paying a penalty? Can she?
- Check your life stage. If you just escaped a loveless marriage or you’ve never had options with women, your judgment is compromised. Admit this to yourself.
These aren’t romantic guidelines. They’re adult guidelines. Romance can live inside them just fine.
Real love is steady. It’s not a daily explosion. It’s a deep, earned trust layered over time with a woman who fits your life. You admire her choices. You respect the way she treats you and others. You have a compatible vision of the future. The attraction is there—good—but the attraction isn’t doing all the heavy lifting. If sex disappeared for a period, you’d still have a real relationship. If looks softened, you’d still choose each other.
Men often think love should feel like a sprint. It’s better as a marathon—consistent, occasionally spectacular, never frantic. The frantic stuff is fun, but it’s not the foundation.
Make Your Model Fit Reality
If you value long-term stability and you know your eyes are wired the way male eyes are wired, accept it and build around it. Don’t lie to yourself, and don’t lie to her. If you’re non-monogamous, say it and structure the relationship accordingly (clear rules, zero drama). If you’re monogamous, don’t weaponize “love” to trap each other in a prison of obligation. Either way, love is a choice you keep making after the chemicals quiet down.
If you remove her looks or her body and your feelings collapse, you weren’t in love—you were enthralled. That’s okay. Just stop writing poetry about it. Love survives the haircut, the weight fluctuation, the birthday candles, and the slow season in the bedroom. Lust doesn’t. Use the tests. Give it time. Keep your eyes open. If it ends up being love, you won’t need to ask. You’ll still be there when the mirror gets honest.
Leave your comment below, but be sure to follow the Five Simple Rules.
P. Johnson Anderson
Posted at 11:50 am, 24th October 2025Looks fade. Cooking lasts.
Jack Outside the Box
Posted at 05:15 pm, 24th October 2025No grown man should be dependent on a woman for cooking, or for anything else of a gender neutral nature. Even when a man lives with a woman, he must keep up his self-discipline and do things for himself. If you get lazy and rely on your woman to cook for you, pick up your socks, and do all the things that a grown ass adult should do for himself, that’s when she is in a position to blackmail you into allowing certain bad behaviors to seep in on her part because you don’t want to break up with her, since you don’t want to go back to picking up your own socks or cooking for yourself again.
My current girlfriend hates the fact that I do everything for myself, which is why she has no power, no means by which to whip me, and no method by which to control me. If she wants to leave, she can, as I pick up my own socks and cook for myself anyway!
Self discipline. It’s pretty cool!.
Nathan
Posted at 12:20 pm, 25th October 2025Most married men find out too late that while marriage lasts forever, a woman’s fertility doesn’t, AND it affects everything.
When a woman reaches close to 40 she hits peri-menopause. Her oxytocin drops out, making her feel less connected to her husband. Her estrogen and serotonin drops through the floor, making her moody and irritable. Then her sleep cycle goes out of whack and her patience and perspective is gone too. Suddenly she awakens and the rose colored glasses come off. She sees her husband without the filtering of limerence and hormones that originally brushed over all his faults – and if she doesn’t like what she sees, she’s now starting to nag and may be looking for the door. The husband is of course confused, the wife becomes emotionally insecure from the husband’s negative reaction to this, and now a divorce seems to “come out of nowhere.”
So realistically a man marrying a 25 year old woman has a good 10-15 years or so of marriage before the wheels are likely to fall off. When fertility is gone, the sex drops off due to her changes – and that’s especially true when there are kids in the picture.
So you really can’t trust the limerence of a new relationship. It serves a purpose for procreation, but once it’s done it’s DONE. There has to be something there after that to keep the relationship going, and it has to be handled maturely, or it’s going to predictably and reliably end.
Given what happens the longer a relationship goes on, ending it quickly is often a better option!
Jack Outside the Box
Posted at 12:47 pm, 25th October 2025This is a very old fashioned belief.
This is true of only some women, but not all. I ‘ve met plenty of women in their 40s who were super horny, as their testosterone increases and their voices deepen after age 30. These women weren’t as horny in their 20s as they are now. It really does depend on the woman, as everyone’s body chemistry is slightly different.
Marriage is an antiquated concept that shouldn’t exist anymore. If you want to be in love, be in love. But involving the government and paperwork is never a good idea.
Again, not always. Two weeks ago, I was SUPER CLOSE to having a mother/daughter threesome with a 46 year old woman and her 22 year old daughter. It didn’t happen for various reasons, but a lack of horniness on the part of the 46 year old mother was not one of them.
This is why the relationship should be open, or at least a discreet don’t ask, don’t tell. If a woman is sleeping with other men besides you, her body won’t come to the conclusion that you are infertile just because you didn’t get her pregnant, so her attraction for you will take a longer time to drop off.. Poly makes relationships last longer, and makes them more interesting, but you need to pick the right woman for that.
Nathan
Posted at 03:25 am, 26th October 2025>> This is a very old fashioned belief.
Despite all the talk that exists in the manosphere – there’s STILL hundreds of thousands of men all around the world getting married all the time.
>> This is true of only some women, but not all. I ‘ve met plenty of women in their 40s who were super horny, as their testosterone increases and their voices deepen after age 30. >> These women weren’t as horny in their 20s as they are now. It really does depend on the woman, as everyone’s body chemistry is slightly different.
There’s a lot of factors that play into the sex that occurs in a woman’s late 30s and 40s. Firstly if she hasn’t had kids yet, it’s her body getting desperate to have children as per her instinctive programming, Her hormones wind themselves up for a “hail mary” shot at getting pregnant, which is why women without children in late 30s even early 40s are a lot of fun and quite open to sex in every way you can imagine. Women’s libido post children late 30s and 40s is a different ball game because she’s already succeeded at reproduction, and she’s not that interested in sex anymore as her body adapts to motherhood. Sex becomes more a case of nostalgia and trying to relive the past as opposed to burning desire. That said these women also want company from men and have figured out the best way to do that is to cook for men and sleep with them – but really only as bait. That’s been my experience anyway with this subset of women.
>> This is why the relationship should be open, or at least a discreet don’t ask, don’t tell.
If you want to get super rational about it, the best course of action is to eschew relationships altogether. Men don’t need them as we don’t give birth to children as require any help. We can just have sex and then leave – preferably to the other side of the world where the legal system can’t find you and try hitting you up for support payments. Usually takes a woman about a month to find out that she’s pregnant, and it just so happens that most countries have 30 day tourist visas. Even then, there’s plenty of women who are totally OK being single mothers and are not too fussed when the man is gone as they feel like they don’t need a man anyway. They do keep telling us that after all.
Personally I wouldn’t do that as I want my kids to have a father in their life. That’s more a personal morality call though. Even the Buddha said that every living thing must find it’s own way….
Jack Outside the Box
Posted at 12:14 pm, 26th October 2025I was referring to America and the West, not some third world shitholes. And they may be getting married even here, but it’s not forever,
The specific 46 year old woman I was thinking about had a daughter and a son. And she was still very horny.
I’ve observed this as well in some cases, but not in many others.
Yeah, as a general rule, I prefer the younger ones too.
Disagree. All human beings need pair bonding and companionship that isn’t just sexual. Pair bonding is natural and healthy. To deny it is unhealthy.
Even if you’re just talking about casual sex, I want to have casual sex with the same woman more than once. I’d rather have regular fuck buddies on my rotation than one night stands.
Dude, it’s called birth control. Why would you deliberately create children only to abandon them? Use condoms and then you won’t feel compelled to flee to the other side of the world every time you have a one night stand. LOL! Jesus Christ!
For fuck sake, CONDOMS! They will save you a lot of trouble. Or just fuck women who are on hormonal birth control. Then you won’t have to change addresses every time you have sex. That’s not rational.
Which is morally despicable. No father should abandon his children. If you made them, they are your responsibility! Abandoning your kids is cruel and evil, regardless of what the woman wants. Don’t want kids? Use condoms, or fuck women only who are on birth control.
Well that’s good at least.
Children need both parents in their lives in order to grow up to be healthy well adjusted adults. That’s a scientifically studied fact. Saying that abandoning the children that you created because you were too lazy to put on a fucking condom might be okay for some people is an insane and cruel thing to say.
Caleb Jones
Posted at 02:41 pm, 26th October 2025This doesn’t happen as often as you think but yes, you’re correct, it’s one of the many reasons why LIFETIME monogamy is a stupid thing to expect. From anyone.
Nathan
Posted at 07:00 pm, 26th October 2025> I was referring to America and the West, not some third world shitholes. And they may be getting married even here, but it’s not forever,
I’m talking about a global audience on the internet. Anyone around the world with google translate could be reading this.
> Even if you’re just talking about casual sex, I want to have casual sex with the same woman more than once. I’d rather have regular fuck buddies on my rotation than one night stands.
Sure you would, but you don’t get to decide that. It’s women that decide whether they just want one night or more than that – and that’s primarily because they can find a man every night of the week if they want, and they don’t mind experimenting with different men. Meanwhile, if you’re trying to keep a woman in your rotation, you’re eventually going to be hit with the “what are we?” talk or the “you’re just using me for sex” talk. Never mind the fact that she’s using you for sex – but she’s alarmed that you haven’t already moved on to the next woman as she would expect an alpha male to do. She’s starting to question if you were ever alpha in the first place. Why else other than sex would you keep her around if you didn’t have other options?
This is why – post sex – you shouldn’t ever call them back. Let them call you.
> Dude, it’s called birth control. Why would you deliberately create children only to abandon them? Use condoms and then you won’t feel compelled to flee to the other side of the world every time you have a one night stand. LOL! Jesus Christ!
Well, there are men who do go Ghenghis Khan around the world. Maybe not as many as there are men who get married… but ask yourself why particular tribes and races of people around the world all look fairly similar. Look up “Joe Donor” on Youtube and prepare to have your mind blown.
> Children need both parents in their lives in order to grow up to be healthy well adjusted adults. That’s a scientifically studied fact. Saying that abandoning the children that you created because you were too lazy to put on a fucking condom might be okay for some people is an insane and cruel thing to say.
I agree, but it’s not that simple. Remember it takes two to tango, and you’re assuming that all the responsibility to avoid pregnancy is on the man. It’s a very partriarchal point of view IMHO. Again, there are many women who say – at the time – that they don’t need a husband and are capable of raising kids on their own. They often change their mind after the fact, but that’s beside the point. Many women are happy to get pregnant to men that they have no intention of wanting to get married to. (the trick is finding them!)
Often getting married and being there for the kids puts added strain on you as a father because of the amount of personal sacrifice you put into it – and in many cases it can make you appear as weak in front of the kids. Is that the sort of role model you should set? Are you teaching kids that life is just endless struggle and sacrifice and no fun at all? If it’s one thing that women find abhorrent in men is men’s ability for personal sacrifice. They don’t understand it or respect it. That’s another reason why most relationships go to pot.
> This doesn’t happen as often as you think but yes, you’re correct, it’s one of the many reasons why LIFETIME monogamy is a stupid thing to expect. From anyone.
I read parts of a book called “how to menopause” and the author claimed in a study of divorces that 7 out of 10 women claimed peri-menopause was a contributing factor.
Jack Outside the Box
Posted at 02:35 am, 27th October 2025Yeah, I’m not. Everything I say comes exclusively from the American perspective, as I am only speaking to Americans. I’m not a globalist, nor do I have a globalist mindset. Caleb originally started this blog in America with an American mindset, so, despite him now living in Dubai, I still see this as an American blog, and I don’t really care about foreign mindsets or foreign cultural norms.
Good for them! Let them read whatever they want. They can even post here if they want. But there is no reason we should have any obligation to represent them. I certainly don’t. They can represent themselves.
I’ve never had any trouble finding women who want to be fuck buddies or friends with benefits. Then again, I come from the world of polyamory, even though I’m monogamous now and cheating, so….
LOL! Like I said, I come from the poly world in which women have casual sex all the time without wanting commitment from their fuck buddies. Most of the women I’ve slept with in the past have had boyfriends or were married. Some of them were cheating, whereas others were in open relationships/marriages. I still have connections to that world, and right now I have two friends with benefits, in addition to my “monogamous” girlfriend. Two regular friends with benefits, plus one fuck buddy who is occasional (who I almost, but not quite, had a mother/daughter threesome with). The two regular friends with benefits are the two mothers of my two children. They are both in open relationships with their boyfriends, and their boyfriends know about me and are fine with it. I used to have a girlfriend from that world as well, but she’s gone now, along with my third child. Long story.
I have never experienced any woman expecting me to dump her after sex just because she sees me as an alpha. Again, most of my fuck buddies in the past already had boyfriends or husbands and were either cheating on them with me, or were in open relationships/marriages, and they just wanted some fun on the side. Then again, they are nowhere near their 40s, so…
Because I want to keep fucking her and not leave her? I’ve never experienced such a mindset.
I’ve built a regular rotation so I don’t have to constantly hunt for new women. I’m a pleasure of sex guy, not a thrill of the hunt guy.
I do not have this mindset. I’ve done both – called them back or waited for them to do so, and both have worked out for me.
I’m familiar with the mindset, and I think it’s despicable. I feel sorry for those children.
If she doesn’t have an IUD inside her, or the Nexplanon implant, then yes, it’s on me not to get her pregnant. Which is why I use condoms, as I don’t want to bring children into the world whom I don’t feel like raising.
Huh? If the only alternative is having an unwanted baby who will grow up without a father, I’ll wear a condom any day. I don’t want to create such children. I can’t control the woman, but I can control myself.
I never said anything about marrying them. I have two children right now with two friends with benefits, whom my current monogamous girlfriend thinks are my ex-friends with benefits. They both have boyfriends in open relationships and the boyfriends are cool with it. I will never marry them, or even get into a serious relationship with them, but I will raise my children with them, and always be there for my kids. Marriage, or even a serious relationship, is not necessary for that.
Yes, I’ve found two of them. You seem to be very marriage oriented in your pronouncements. I’m anti-marriage, but not anti-serious relationship. I just won’t have a serious relationship with the two mothers of my two children (they are just friends with benefits who have their own boyfriends). But just because I’m not married to them, or even in a serious relationship with them, doesn’t mean that they’re raising the kids alone. They’re not. I have joint custody of both.
Again, who said I have to get married in order to be there for the kids? I certainly don’t. But I will always take care of my kids.
I have help from the poly community. I’m not alone. I think you’re just grasping at straws now.
I don’t look weak. I may be stressed, but time management helps a lot. Right now, I’m typing this while both kids are with their respective mothers.
Of course not! At this point, I don’t even know what you’re talking about. I have fun with my kids and play with them all the time!
I make plenty of sacrifices for my two kids, and my two friends with benefits (their respective mothers) seem to appreciate it, and so does my girlfriend who thinks I’m monogamous to her. She’s met my kids, but my third occasional fuck buddy has not and is vaguely aware that I even have kids.
Yes, it’s hard sometimes, which is why time management is crucial!
Nathan
Posted at 04:31 am, 27th October 2025The comments you made seem somewhat defensive. I don’t really think you need to be if everything you said is great and working out for you. Maybe it’s just the way you responded but if things aren’t great and you’re being insecure about it, then that’s something else.
In any case, I’m not here to judge. There is no one perfect way to handle this aspect of your life. There are a multitude of ways, each with their various trade-offs.
Jack Outside the Box
Posted at 08:02 am, 27th October 2025Really? I was simply disagreeing with you by pointing out my own life experiences and current life situation. No need to psychoanalyze. .
Leon
Posted at 04:35 am, 28th October 2025I’ve been following you for a long time, read tons of your blog posts, old and new, but this post confuses me. It reads and feels like an AI post, not Caleb’s. I know you use AI for a lot of work, but for the love of God, please don’t use it to write blog posts, It feels inauthentic and lots of your magic is lost.
Caleb Jones
Posted at 06:03 am, 28th October 2025It is 100% my content but it’s an AI summary of one of my YouTube videos. If you want articles with the real me with no AI summaries, go here instead: https://www.calebjonesblog.com/