I'm not sure which thread to respond to so I'll just start a new one under the original. There may be some overlapping ideas in here that you'll see in other responses. Anyway.

I was in a relationship once where my girlfriend told me that saying "I love you" too often makes it lose its meaning. She obviously agreed with viewpoint #1. I love to tell my wife that I love her. I find her to be beautiful all the time and feel free to tell her. She often doesn't agree. If I'm ever insincere with her, though, she knows in an instant. Whenever I can, I try to do small things for her because they add up and because doing one or two big things every so often can be harder to do and can be overlooked easily, at least by me. The small things can have more variety, too, which we both enjoy. I am obviously of the mind of viewpoint #2 and should have known that the previous relationship was doomed by that comment and other differences that we had.

A book that my wife and I like a lot and have given as a gift to many couples is "The Five Love Languages" by Gary Chapman. To summarize, Chapman says that there are five main love languages that people have: Receiving gifts, Acts of service, Quality time, Physical touch, and Words of Affirmation. Most people have a primary love language which they desire to have directed at them the most (sometimes there are two that are very strong). Now, if your primary is Acts of service, you feel loved when people do things for you, such as running an errand, washing the dishes, etc. Unfortunately, if someone is showing you love using a different love language, such as Words of Affirmation, you might not realize it and would view it differently while the person affirming you doesn't understand why their love isn't recognized. Make sense?

One way to figure out your primary love language is to think about what you do for other people. If you absolutely love to give people gifts, that is probably the way that you are shown love the best as well. This can be turned around, too. If someone is constantly complimenting, Words of Affirmation is most likely their primary love language. Try complimenting them more and see if that has an effect.

Ideally, all five languages should be performed for someone you love. I'm always fascinated by the dynamic that is described with these aspects and feel that it is usually pretty right on.

Being honest is romantic. Being romantic should be honest. I say, the more the better.

Fer"Does this have anything to do with your question, BG?"rick