Happy

as in

"I’d like to make you happy."

Variations: "Why can’t you be happy? ... What is it going to take to make you happy? ... Most women would be happy."

A simple rule: boys like to imagine themselves as St.George riding to the rescue of the damsel in the clutches of the dragon. Never mind that there is no dragon lurking and that you are not actually in distress but actually already happy - well, relatively happy. Or at least happy at the moment that he is telling you he wants to make you happy. He can only imagine a relationship in which you need to be saved and he is the saviour.

Looking at his offer more closely though, you may get the impression that rather than "making" you happy - smiling, laughing, over the moon - he would just like you to "be" happier etc simply from knowing him.

For when it comes to the crunch, he is a knight without a horse and, it must be said, without even the stomach for facing dragons. So when he does ask, "What will it take to make you happy?" he is not so much looking for tips as signalling the absolute impossibility of ever achieving such a gargantuan task.

"Me make an effort to make you happy? You must be joking!!! Me change my character or my behaviour or even my socks to make you happy? Why should I have to undergo a transformation like that?"

Paradoxically, much as he fails to bring happiness into your life, he may demonstrate an uncanny ability to make you miserable. Again he can do this with no effort on his part at all, although perversely he may actually show a will to bestir himself when it comes to making you unhappy.

How do you think the damsel got into the dragon’s clutches in the first place?