Never

as in

"I would never hurt you."

Variations: "I would never say that ... never do that ... never fancy anyone else ... never be unfaithful ... never do anything at all that would upset you."

Not much comfort, is it? Because even as you listen to this cheery reassurance, it is almost impossible to blank out a series of implicit conditions that are inevitably attached to it. To wit: "I would never do bad things like A, B or C ... UNLESS (there’s the rub!) ... unless I wanted to ... unless I felt like it .... unless I was annoyed with you ... unless I liked someone better."

He may not be aware of the conditions himself at the time he is promising such submissiveness. Let’s be generous to him for a moment and assume he doesn’t. Give him that much credit to start with because this is probably one of those moments when he does sincerely believe his life is about to change
forever.

That’s understandable: since he has just met you, after all. Trouble is that "never" is unlikely to have ever had very much longevity in his experience. Instead, it is a relative term like "famished" - which doesn’t mean he’s starving but that he hasn’t had a pizza for a few hours. Or "parched" - which doesn’t
mean he’s dying of thirst but simply fancies sinking a few pints with his mates.

Ask him to give a few examples of how he normally uses the word "never" and he’ll probably say that he’s "never" been so tired as he was last week (doing maybe half as much in a week as you do in a day), that he’s "never" worked so hard as he is now ("I understand. Those business lunches are so gruelling, aren’t they, darling!"), and that there has "never" been a player like XYZ (whoever happens to be the media’s flavour of the month).

In short, "never" is about as comforting as the promise "hard wearing" on a pair of tights.