Advice from the old lady:
Frame rules the day here as noted by several people. If you are in the masculine, leadership frame then you are able to do or say whatever you like without loss of attraction. Everything about my guy says masculine leadership frame. He does what he wants, with who he wants, whenever he chooses. His actions tell me he chooses me and his actions have said that for a while now.
He gave me the rose I'm holding in my avatar, and he took that photo. He said "I love you" first, and often and early on. Hell, I have him gushing about how much he loves me on voicemail (during booty calls which I did not answer, lol) but of course part of that was the unfilteredness of drink, and part of that was the saying what he thinks I wanted to hear early on in order to get what he wanted (late night sex). Obviously I did not answer those booty calls, and so enforced my boundary in that respect...which of course made him that much more curious about my whereabouts and goings on (am I really home sleeping...am I out with another guy...etc.) So he used "I love you" as a means to an end at times...during the love bombing that narcissists do.
All that early on was infatuation. Real love is a giving sort of thing. It requires investment, and it takes time to manifest and develop. It is an action verb transitive, meaning it is something you DO for someone else. I actually find the infatuation stage of relationship somewhat annoying. In the sense that it isn't real from an authentic love standpoint. You have to get through the infatuation stage to understand whether or not you have anything real at the core of the relationship. Yes infatuation is heady and its intoxicating and its warm and fuzzy and all that...its also fleeting. It isn't intimacy and it hasn't any depth. It's like a short acting drug. Great while you are actually high, and then you aren't any more.
Real love is more akin to a healthy lifestyle that you take pride in day in and day out. It is steadfast, it deepens over time, and creates genuine feelings of devotion and good will toward the other person even on a bad day. It manifests itself in actions which reflect the value that the other person has and the value that the relationship has. I find intimacy of depth and love with one person to be of far more worth than the heady intoxication of the conquest, but unless and until you are willing and able to undertake the path to intimacy you will not understand the value of intimacy over conquest, and therefore you will lack a frame of reference sufficient to assign intimacy much value. You remain ignorant about intimacy and the joys that are discoverable only there.
My guy is an intimacy virgin although he has been with countless women and had many relationships. He says "I love you" from a place of authenticity and a place of vulnerability now. And of course I say it to him as well too. Can the wheels still fall off the bus at any time? Yup. Would that suck? Yup. But that is what intimacy is. It is the courage to go on and be vulnerable in spite of the risk of getting hurt. It is the ability to stick through things and talk about things even when things are rough. And it is the comfort and warmth of being accepted as you are, flaws, imperfections, and all by someone else, having let that other person in enough to really "see" you. That takes time and investment and courage.
So watch actions rather than words, and lead from a masculine frame, and be congruent. From there do as you please for you are a man. My guy says it with some frequency, and sometimes catches me off guard, but more importantly his actions say that what he tells me is true, and as things progress that allows the relationship to grow and deepen. His congruence is increasing over time, and his investment (of time, effort, and resources) has also been consistent and increasing over time...he is emotionally engaged and present.
Again, these are not things that happen in the infatuation stage. These things happen later, once infatuation wanes and you realize you still really enjoy your time with the other person.