All the biggest signs that he is serious about you
Are you dating a new guy and wondering if he sees a potential future with you? Check out these signs that he sees you long-term and get clarity once and for all.
All guys are a little bit different in the ways they show their interests. Just because he hasn’t brought up marriage and other big milestones doesn’t mean he is not serious about you.
Guys like to try and figure you out before making important decisions about a common future. If you feel like you want to know where the relationship is heading, watch out for these 17 signs that he sees you long-term.
1. He surprises you
When many of my friends meet their future husbands, the one thing that stood out about him from other guys they were dating was that he did something fun and original to catch their attention.
Basically, he paid close attention to their unique likes and he did something out of the ordinary to give them a treat that would be meaningful to them.
He treats you to something extraordinary
For example, getting tickets to a concert they would enjoy, or showing up with a thoughtful gift that was something they wanted but hadn’t thought about getting from themselves.
Another guy sent my friend a big box of her favorite chocolate and other things she liked. She didn’t even remember that she had told him about what her favorite chocolate was.
He wants to show his best self
The surprise component is a way for this man to stand out from the competition. Whatever happens between the two of you, he wants to be remembered. You are one of a kind to him and he wants to make sure that you see him as one of a kind.
2. He is consistent
A guy who sees you long-term will always be more consistent than most guys.
He will realize what a gem you are. He doesn’t want to risk another man snatching you up, so he will be very careful to always show up in a consistent way.
He is there for you
He will answer your messages quickly. He will want to see you regularly. He will also keep you updated on what is going on in his life. If he goes away for a weekend to see family, he will tell you.
He sees you
His consistency is also a way for him to show you that he is considerate of your feeling and that he has the ability to see any experience from your point of view. He is not self-centered.
True love can make even the most self-obsess man into an empathic creature. The more he sees things from your perspective, and the more he takes care of your feelings, the deeper his interest runs.
3. He asks about your future
A clear sign of a guy who sees you long-term is that he will ask more about your personal goal than other guys.
He will want to know if the two of you share a common vision for the future. If he asks if you want children or how you would want to raise your children, that’s already a good sign that he is considering a future with you.
He helps you advance your career
A guy who is invested in a relationship is also very invested in your well-being. For example, he wants to know how your work is going. He might also ask you questions about what you want your living situation to be or if you want to live in another country.
4. He is supportive of your future goals
This is a good sign to be on the lookout for; a guy who sees you long-term will be interested and engaged in your long-term goals. He will ask you what you want out of life and what goals you have in all areas of life.
The more supportive he is of your long-term goal, the more he sees a future with you.
He wants to make sure your futures align
After all, the idea behind the two of you dating is that you will share a common future. Thus, what you want for yourself in the future will be important to him.
If he sees you as someone he wants as a life partner, he probably sees himself in your future and he wants both of you to be successful and thrive in that future.
5. He shows his affection publicly
A guy who is serious about you and about the relationship is not afraid to be affectionate publicly. This is one of the most obvious signs that a guy sees you long-term.
He wants the world to know that he is your man. He wants to show everyone that the two of you have chosen each other. So if he puts his arm around you, kisses you, or holds your hand, in a public setting, those are all very good signs that he wants the relationship to go places.
He is affectionate privately
Granted, not everyone is a fan of public affection.
If he is not, he will make sure to make up for this by being very loving and affectionate in private.
He will be affectionate in private without the affection leading to sex. When he just wants to cuddle, that’s actually a good sign.
6. He spends time getting to know your friends and family
The more a guy shows up to see your friends and family, the more likely that he is totally smitten with you and that he indeed sees a future with you.
Let’s be honest; spending time with someone else’s friends and family is not always fun. There is no common history to rely on, and often you feel a bit stiff and eager to make a good impression.
If your new guy is prepared to do all that, he is definitely thinking long-term about your relationship.
He wants to know all sides of you
The more open he is to this sort of hang-outs, the more likely he sees you as a keeper.
He also wants to connect with your friends and family as a way to get to know more about you. If he asks them questions about you, this is a good sign that he is invested in the relationship.
Check out our article What makes a man fall in love, to get more tips on how to let him see different sides of you.
7. He gives you a lot of his time
How we spend our time is the most telling sign of how we feel about something.
We are naturally drawn to things we love. We invest in the things that bring us joy. The things we don’t like to do, we have to force ourselves to do.
The more of his precious time he invests in your relationship, the more interested he is in a long-term connection.
If he is busy, you are still a priority
Sure, people get busy from time to time. But you can still observe if he goes out of his way to make space for you in his busy schedule. If he can’t seem to be able to stay away from you, he is already thinking about a common future.
8. He asks for exclusivity
A guy who is serious about you will naturally worry about you hooking up with other guys. He will consider you a catch and he will want to make you his woman.
In other words, he will bring up the question of exclusivity. If he asks for exclusivity, you know that he sees a potential long-term relationship with you.
Guys who are simply playing the field will not ask for exclusivity as they know that sends the wrong message.
9. He makes it official on social media
In today’s world, nothing says “I’m serious about you” quite the way as making things official on social media.
When he starts including you in his Insta stories, you know he is interested in something more serious. When a guy deletes the dating apps is another of the signs that he sees you long-term.
He changes his relationship status
When he changes his relationship status, he for sure considers the possibility that you might be the one. Our social media is often open to everyone, so things that happen there are, in some ways, very official.
If he is serious about you and a good communicator, he will probably ask how much you want to be included on his social media and if you are ready to make things social media official.
10. He admires you
This is such a sweet sign that a guy is smitten with you and sees you as possible relationship material.
When we like someone, we admire different things about that person. We just can’t help ourselves, they seem like the greatest and most accomplished person we ever meet. Everything they do seems cool and impressive.
He sees all the things that make you great
So, if he always gives you compliments and brings up your achievement, you are someone he probably wants as a girlfriend and he does see you long-term. When we are less emotionally invested in someone, we are usually not that impressed with them.
11. He shares his passions with you
When a guy is vetting a woman as a potential long-term partner, it’s very important for him that the two of you share many different interests.
After all, if you become a couple, you will spend a lot of time together.
It’s more fun to have a girlfriend who loves to do what you love to do.
He wants you to try all the things he is passionate about
If the guy you are dating invites you to all his favorite activities, it’s actually his way of testing if you would fit into his life. He wants to know if the two of you would indeed make a good match.
He already sees potential in you as a person, now he wants to know if the two of you are capable of having a lot of fun together.
12. He is vulnerable with you
Guys also want to be loved for their secret sides.
When we start liking someone, it becomes important to us that they get the full picture. We actually want them to see our shortcomings. We want to find out if they are capable of loving us for exactly who we are.
He tells you personal things
You might think that a guy who sees you long-term would always try to impress you and show you their best side. But when a guy is deeply serious about a woman, he will share things about himself that most people don’t know. He will open up to you in a way he doesn’t often do to other people.
13. He initiates contact
A guy who is interested in a committed long-term relationship will make sure that he initiates in all different areas of life.
He will text you. He will also ask to spend time with you. He will initiate different ways to take your relationship to the next level.
A healthy development of a relationship is when both of you take the initiative to the next step.
There are many ways to deepen the relationship
He might introduce you as his girlfriend, he might give you a key to his apartment.
Whatever he does, it’s important that you are on the lookout for him to initiate the advancement of the relationship.
You don’t want to be the only one rowing the boat. It’s also a good sign if he takes the initiative to do fun outings such as trips and other activities.
14. He checks in with you
One of the clearest signs that a guy sees you long-term is that he will check in with you over text or phone. He might not schedule a meet-up or even have anything special to say. It’s like the song I just called to say hello.
He just wants to connect
When you are serious about someone, you don’t need a reason to reach out. You are not trying to achieve anything other than a genuine connection.
You are happy just to hear their voice.
He probably just wants to hear what you are up to. He also wants to show that he is there for you. He wants to make sure that you are OK.
15. He likes to do mundane things together with you
Life itself is fun, for sure.
But life is also full of mundane tasks such as laundry, grocery shopping and cleaning.
When he invites you to those activities, don’t be scared. The two of you doing normal, slightly boring stuff, is actually one of the good signs. He does see you long-term.
He just likes to be around you
He feels comfortable with you, and he wants to include you in his day-to-day activities. In fact, he feels so comfortable around you that he doesn’t always have to impress you.
Instead, he wants to see how well the two of you get along when it comes to ordinary life.
16. He tells you about his future goals
When a man tells you about his plans and goals, sure, he is trying to impress you. But he is also sharing with you who he truly is.
A man’s goals are something very personal to him. In many ways, for him, it’s the essence of who he is.
When he shares his goals with you, it means that he trusts you and that he values your opinion.
This sign that a man sees you long-term is not to overlook.
He wants to know where you stand
He also shares his goals with you because he wants to find out if you will be supportive of his goals and if the two of you share the same goal.
He is testing if the two of you are indeed compatible.
The reason he even has those questions in his mind is proof that he considers the possibility of having you as a long-term partner.
17. He introduces you to his friends
A man’s friends are usually very important to him. He holds their opinions in high regard. He might even want to impress them. Also, he wants to know if you will like his friends and if they will like you. If you were only a fling, he wouldn’t make the effort to introduce you to his friends.
His friends are an important part of his life
The more he wants you to spend time with him and his friends, the more invested he is in the relationship. Especially if he shows a lot of the other signs on this list.
He lets you know that he sees you long-term by including you in the activities he shares with his friends.
Some men are afraid
Let’s say you are dating a guy and he doesn’t show any of the above signs, or just a very few. Should you throw in the towel and re-activate your Tinder account?
You are tempted to just move on.
But the thing is that a part of you senses that he does indeed like you, he does care. The connection between the two of you is special.
So why does he not see you long-term? Why is he so elusive?
To like or not to like
The truth is that we can never know what goes on in the depths of another person’s soul.
He might be sporadic in the way he contacts you; he might be hesitant to talk about the future, he might avoid introducing you to his friends.
He can still be crazy about you
He can still be madly in love with you.
Sometimes, the stronger the feelings, the more we retract. The more we act as if the whole thing is casual and we don’t even care. because of our feelings, we are afraid of inviting someone into our lives and into the depths of our souls.
We are afraid to get hurt. Sometimes we are afraid to become trapped.
We don’t always act in accordance with our feelings
As nonintuitive as it sounds, our behavior does not always reflect our true feelings.
The reason behind this is that a man will always behave according to his feelings minus his fears.
His feelings for you might be 10 out of 10, but if his fears are 9, all you get is a behavior of 1.
He doesn’t seem into you
In other words, he will act the same way as a man who has very weak feelings for you. His fears are keeping him from advancing the relationship. Maybe it is fears acquired from an earlier relationship that is holding him back.
He might associate relationships with being stuck. Truth be told, some relationship is like that. His fear is not completely unwarranted.
Check out our guides about emotionally unavailable men as well as Signs he is fighting his feeling for you, to get more clarity.
He didn’t choose his behavior
Some men are ruled by fear of intimacy and true closeness.
Don’t blame the man in question. This most often stems from a traumatic childhood. (People can claim that they had an amazing childhood, and this is not necessarily the truth.)
As children we are helpless
He was once a frightened child who didn’t get his needs met. Now, the wounded part of him is still running the show and making those crucial decisions on his behalf.
Love scares him, he associates love with being rejected or being made to feel shame. No wonder he has a push-and-pull behavior when it comes to romantic relationships.
Ask him about his feelings
The first thing you need to do is to communicate with him. (You probably already guessed that.)
Be vulnerable and tell him what you want and what you feel. Tell him what you need in order to advance the relationship and ask him point blank if he is capable of giving you that.
Some relationship never goes anywhere because both parties refuse to be vulnerable and admit that they do have strong feelings. Be more vulnerable than you have ever been before. I promise you that afterward, you will be proud of yourself.
You might get rejected, but at least you get clarity.
What do you need?
After realizing that he might be afraid of the very thing he also longs for, you might be overflown with sympathy for the man in question. But you always have to remember yourself in this equation, you have to take care of yourself. You have to prioritize yourself. Don’t take your empathy and use it to hurt yourself.
Often, we get stuck on one guy because of a lack-mentality. We wrongly assume we will never find such a connection again. But this is simply not the truth. The right guy for you will be a guy who shows all the 17 signs that he sees you long-term.
A Final Note
As you draw wisdom and conclusions from this list, remember that all guys are different.
We often treat people we like as we would like to be treated ourselves.
If he loves to discuss deep questions, he will ask you deep questions. If he loves to talk about career goals, he will bring up that kind of discussion with you. If he loves to go out in nature and explore, he will invite you along to his adventures.
Thus, how individual guys show you that they are interested in a long-term relationship will vary according to their unique personalities. But most of the signs above will be present.
Just because a guy sees you long-term, don’t forget to ask yourself if he has the qualities you are looking for in a long-term partner. You are the one that should be evaluating him.
Moa Ailert is the founder and editor-in-chief of Her Brilliant Friend.
She has a bachelor’s degree in philosophy and plenty of insight into human psychology from traveling and living in different places around the world.
Moa is currently based in Portugal where she has a guesthouse; Villa dos Irmaos.
She has various websites, among others Ericeira Insider, but Her brilliant friend is her true passion project.
