Courtney asks: How do you know when you’re in love?
Hi Courtney –
It’s so funny, people ask this all the time. I think it’s like asking how you know you have a toothache – it’s because your tooth hurts! You know you’re in love because you feel all giddy about that person, you adore them, you care tons about them, you’re often kind of obsessed with them, and all those cheesy songs that you’ve always felt were beneath you suddenly make sense!
But actually, I don’t think you’re asking that. I think you’re asking how one knows they’re REALLY in love. How can you know it’s The Real Thing, and not just infatuation or something.
Well, I guess I have two totally different answers for you. The first is actually a question: When is it NOT real love? If you fall head-over-heels for someone and they reject you and you later realize they were right, that you’re really not right for each other, does that mean you weren’t in real love? Or is it just that you fell in love with someone and it didn’t work out? I think it IS real love. It might be based on a false impression of someone, but the emotion is still just as real.
But second, a lot of times, people use the term Real Love to mean LASTING Love. A love that doesn’t go away, that makes it through the difficulties of life. We see couples who stay together, and keep caring for each other, till death do they part. And that’s absolutely beautiful. But I don’t know that when they first fell in love, their love appeared any different from those that didn’t last. I think you only know that that a love is that kind of love, with Time. Everyone who gets married promises to stay together till death do they part, and I’m sure almost all of them mean it! So how do the ones that last know that they’ll last?
I don’t know. And I don’t think they do either.
So to summarize: how do you know you’re in love? Because you feel it. But how do you know it’s something real that will last and grow? You don’t.
But I will say one thing. One really good sign is if you don’t spend your time wishing you weren’t together. I have never had one second wishing I didn’t have Handsome, and he has been the same about me. It’s not the same as romantic mushy love, but it’s sure Real!
With Love,
Shirelle