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I have been going out with my boyfriend for eight months. I'm in love with him and he says the same of me. But I can't ignore the gut feeling I have that he is not quite 100 per cent sincere. He likes the physical connection we have, but when I ask him about his feelings, it's like pulling teeth. Should I break up with him?

I get a question something like this once a month or so. So, you may have noticed, do all the other advice columnists. Women, it seems, are constantly worrying about whether their men love them enough. The men don't profess their love often or loudly enough, it seems, and most importantly, they don't ask their girlfriends to marry them after six weeks. The women seem to be in a big rush about this. (They don't attach their ages to their letters, but one can guess that there is a biological-clock issue going on for most of them.)

I, of course, never have enough information. He says he loves you but you don't believe it. There must be something else he's doing, or not doing, to make you suspicious. I wish I knew what it was. I can't tell if you're just in an anxious rush to get married - which will come across as desperate and unattractive, and no intelligent man will want to make this decision in a rush - or if you have a genuine reason to doubt this guy. My instinct says that if you feel there's something wrong, vague as it is - wrong enough to seek advice - then it means you're not happy. And that says it all. It's just not working out.

The more interesting question is what is going on to make this such a common source of discontent. It's as if the sexual revolution never happened: Young women seem as fixated on a 1957 ideal of marriage as they were in, well, 1957. It seems awfully practical and basically unromantic to me, but then I'm a starry-eyed sentimental libertine. I wish people could be content with this simple formula: stay with him as long as you're happy, and leave when you're not. What could be more romantic than a daily decision to stay with someone?

You can view the complete archive of Ask Mr. Smith questions, or ask a question of your own, by going to Russell Smith's online advisory service, XYCanada.com, and selecting your city site.