I’ve been seeing this guy for over seven months now, and I definitely have feelings for him. But do I love him? Am I in love with with him? How to know for sure? I know that I love a lot of things about him, but it’s important for me to know whether I’m in love with him. I hope you get the difference.
So to lessen my confusion and throw some light over the whole matter, I spoke to my friend who’s a bit more experienced in such matters and has seen more rains than me. And she told me about a few surefire ways to know whether or not I’m in love with this guy I’ve been seeing. If you, like me, are asking yourself, how to know you’re in love, you’ve come to the right place.
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Read on to know what signs my friend revealed to me.
1. Your love is consistent
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Love doesn’t come and go like a tidal wave. It’s consistent. In other words, it isn’t a sometimes thing. When you’re in love with someone, you have genuine affection for them. You care about what happens to them, and you’re always interested in how they’re doing. Its consistency is one of the sure things that answers the question, how to know you’re in love.
2. You always want the best for them
When you love someone, you’re ready to do whatever it takes to make them happy, even if it means denying something to yourself. You don’t think twice to give them that last piece of cake you’ve been thinking of eating, or forgoing your plans of an exotic vacation so that they can get that presentation done which will seal their spot for the promotion they’ve been working their butt off.
3. You have no problem compromising
When you love someone, you’re willing to let them have their own way from time to time, and they do the same for you too. It’s just the way love works. When you compromise, you don’t feel like you’re giving in, because you’re working together as a team for the good of the relationship. Sure, it can sometimes feel like you’re compromising way too much than your partner, but what relationship is ever equitable? There’s always going to be a deficit. But that’s okay, as long as both of you are willing to pull your weight when it comes to compromising on things, however big or small.
4. You respect and value each other
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A loving relationship has three cornerstones that make it successful – trust, understanding, and respect. Striking a balance in the relationship, in whatever aspect of it, is what makes a good relationship a successful one. It’s hard to always keep the balance in the relationship, but if you love each other enough, you’ll try your best to achieve it, however tricky it might seem.
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5. You worry for them
When you love someone, it’s only natural to worry about them. Granted that nothing comes of worrying, and that it’s irrational and quite pointless in the end, but it shows how much you care for the other person, and how much you really need for them to be safe – whether it’s physical harm or mental or emotional.
6. You don’t hold sex and physical intimacy as leverage in your fights
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Loving someone doesn’t automatically make you want to crave sex ALL the time. No. You are, after all, a human being. It just means that when you truly love someone, you don’t hold sex hostage to your whims and use it as leverage against your partner when they do something that you don’t approve of. You may not be in the mood for sex, and that’s okay. But making it conditional upon their behavior, is not.
7. You’re proud of your partner and show them off (and mean it too!)
Although it seems like a small thing in the larger scheme of things, it speaks volumes of the love your partner has for you and vice versa. You find yourself talking about your bae’s latest achievements, without making it sound as if they’ve won the Nobel Prize. You find yourself smiling as you recount how easily and effortlessly they solved a seemingly unsolvable problem at work. And you love showing them off to your friends, and actually mean it.
8. You have eyes only for your partner
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You’re bound to check out other people who are hot or sexy or handsome or beautiful. But you don’t see them and think to yourself, ‘I’d hit that if I were single.’ That ceases to happen when you’re in love. Yes, you do check them out, but for purely aesthetic reasons, because however beautiful those people might be, you know that your partner is the only beautiful/hot/handsome/sexy person you WANT in your life.
9. You love their imperfections
Let’s make one thing clear – nobody is perfect. Every person has their own set of flaws, quirks, and imperfections. But when you love someone, you don’t see these as imperfections, but as things that make them unique, distinct. You start loving these idiosyncrasies that might be called flaws. You’ll start to think of them as adorable quirks. You just embrace these imperfections and love your perfectly imperfect person all the more.
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10. You want to be better for them
Image source: Pixabay, under Creative Commons License
According to my friend, this is one of the biggest things that answers the question, how to know you’re in love. It also gives you a clue as to know for sure if what you feel for this person is transient or will stand the ravages of time. You grow as a person when you’re with them. You change yourself for the better, and that too only for yourself, and not upon their insistence, because they would never do that. Your relationship with this person inspires you to become the best possible version of yourself that you could be. If you find yourself doing this, then you’re definitely in love, and with a person who encourages to be the independent, self-respecting individual that you are.
So now you know what are the signs that tell you you’re in love – for real. If you find yourself ticking ‘yes’ against each and every one of these points that my friend outlined for me, then you’re with the person you’re meant to be with.
PS: Unfortunately, I’m clearly not in love with the guy I’m currently with. Oh well. I just have to keep looking for the one till I find him, I guess.
Featured image source: Google, copyright-free image under Creative Commons License
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