Years, literally. Maybe I'm a slow learner emotionally, but, in my experience, while I may care for someone early on, I only get goosebumps thinking about them after a very long time, my girlfriend took well over 2 years, and I'm happy about that, of course I cared for her for those years and our relationship grew emotionally before I could actually tell her I loved her and not feel like I was misidentifying love for lust. Sometimes I'm still not sure. People say weird things during sex, it causes the brain to shut off, though I've never called her mom.