Okay, that's an aditional layer of complication.

Here's one thing that I often notice in american media: Characters make a huge fuss about saying they love each other, even after being boyfriend and girlfriend for weeks or months. It's treated as almost the same thing as proposing marriage. Is that just for drama or really how things are in America?
I know about a study done in World War 2 with american soldiers and British women to find out why there are some complications when the two met. Turned out that the american soldiers asking for a kiss regarded it as one of the very first steps to signal their affection. The british women treated a kiss as signaling that the relationship has reached the stage where it will get to sex very soon. As a result the americans were regarded as extremely pushy, because they want to go streight to sex. The british women were regarded as extremely easy to get, because once you got them to kiss you, they immediately wanted to take you to bed.

So it might be that the american phrase "I love you" means something entirely different then the german phrase "Ich liebe dich". As said, I am not an expert on typical German relationships, but my assumtption always was that "Ich liebe dich" signals that you have passed from the stage of interest to the stage where you are really serious about it and have the intention to start the first steps to a long-term relationship. Obviously that doesn't apply to people who have sex just for fun, but I would consider that the "conservative" course of action for people who only have sex as part of commited relationships. In such a relationship, even kissing before saying "I love you" seems highly inappropriate to me. Or you have to say it immediately after.

Thoughts?