A man sometimes thinks that after all he has done for a woman surely she must know he loves her and he doesn’t need to keep showing it by saying so, giving gifts, holding doors, etc.

How bizarre. Let’s try a transposition of that:

A full professor sometimes thinks that after all he has done for the university surely they must know he’s brilliant and he doesn’t need to keep showing it by writing papers, teaching, supervising grad students, etc.

or:

A lawyer sometimes thinks that after all he has done for the partnership surely the partners must know he’s a good lawyer and he doesn’t need to keep showing it by winning cases.

There is something fundamentally missing from all three analyses.

BTW, these are not caricatures. I have actually heard a professor say pretty much the above. “The department appointed me, that means they must be satisfied with my performance, so why do they insist on counting my publications every year?” It’s called “resting on one’s laurels.”

It’s good to be good at something. It’s great to be good while
appearing to devote little effort.
Some signalling is dishonest, and each of us has an incentive to convince others that we are more honest than we are.
Signalling is competitive, and each of us has an incentive to
convince others to compete a little less.
Some of us can afford to signal less in certain areas and
still appear obviously superior. Exuding distain really rubs it in.

Is distain warranted? In my view, a great deal of signalling is likely to be both honest and fun. Honest a la Zahavi. Fun because fitness-enhancing activities are pleasurable, and the most fitness-enhancing activities are the ones we’re relatively good at. What’s not to like (besides the signalling-ugliness of saying, “signalling is great!”)?

The most common combination is that man thinks relationship as contract and woman feels relationship as emotional state. This causes endless confusion when people do not recognize it.

For people who feel relationship as emotional state, constant signaling is much more important than for people who think relationship as contract or those for whom relationship is about action.