The most difficult thing in life is to accept love. When somebody says, “I love you,” listen. Whether you say it or not, somewhere inside you there is a no – because you cannot accept the idea that you are worth loving, that anybody can love you. He must be cheating you, he must be deceiving you; he must have some ends in his mind. He wants to exploit you.

No woman believes it when you tell her, “I love you.” She thinks, “This man is trying to exploit my body. He wants to use me as an object.” She is reluctant, she creates every kind of barrier; she rejects, she withdraws. These are her ways to test whether you really love her. She will create every kind of objection to your love and will wait and will see whether your love is still alive. Unless she is convinced totally that you love her, she will not accept your love. And even then that acceptance is only superficial; soon she will start nagging you, soon she will start taking revenge, soon she will be fighting with you.

And the same is true about men – even more so. That’s why no woman ever says to any man, “I love you.” She never initiates the process, because to tell any man, “I love you,” means danger. He will escape, he will escape immediately! The woman only withdraws, but she does not withdraw totally; she withdraws only so far. She remains in a way available. Even if she says no she says it in such a beautiful way that you feel there is a possibility of yes.

One day I saw Nasruddin very happy and I asked, “What is the matter?”

He said, “The woman I love has said to me that This is the last time I am saying no!”

The man thinks that a woman’s no means yes. Somewhere, the way she says it… the word is no, but it carries the meaning of yes. She withdraws only so far that she remains within your reach. But man really becomes afraid, very much afraid.

Man is a weaker sex. This is my categorical statement: man is a weaker sex. The woman is a far stronger sex. Nature has made her more strong. She has to be more strong to give birth to children, to carry the child for nine months in the womb. She has a more resistant body, she lives longer than man, she is more healthy than man. More men commit suicide, almost double the number of women. Although women talk about suicide – sometimes they even take pills, but always in such a way that they can be saved. Out of ten attempted suicides only one succeeds, and that I also think by some mistake! But twice as many men commit suicide in comparison to women, and also double the number of men go mad in comparison to women.

Man is a very much weaker sex. He has no resistance: he falls ill more, he lives less – five years less than women… So the moment a woman says, “I love you,” he becomes very much afraid.

One sannyasin has asked, “Why is it that whenever a woman approaches me I become frightened and scared?”

It is not an individual, personal problem. Every man becomes afraid when a woman approaches him. That’s why women all over the world have decided not to approach men, never to initiate anything – wait. The woman functions like a mousetrap: she simply waits for the mouse to come in. And the mouse comes! He will go round and round, make a few circles, look here and there, watch, come a little closer and see whether there is any danger or not… and then, slowly slowly, he will be caught.

And then the woman can always say, “I was never after you!” And she has always been after you. That mousetrap was watching, looking where the mouse is going, what he is doing, how far he is. But the woman remains very detached, aloof; that is part of her feminine beauty and attraction. If she jumps upon you, you will escape! Just think of a mousetrap running after a mouse – do you think it will ever catch any mouse? Impossible! The mouse will run into its hole and will never come out!

Osho, Theologia Mystica, Ch 14, Q 1 (excerpt)