With Valentine’s Day quickly approaching, love is on the mind. It can be difficult to know if you’re truly in love with the one you’re with. Because the “L word” is such a tricky thing, it’s often confused with infatuation or lust. If you’ve experienced these 10 tell-tale sings, then you are head over heels and have been bitten by the love bug.
10. You are constantly denying being in love.
Okay so you’ve been with this person for a while. All of a sudden people start asking you “are you in love, oh my god do you love him, is he like the one?” Your immediate answer is “NO I AM NOT! Stop asking me all of these questions and leave me alone.” Deny Deny Deny. You figure if you keep saying no your friends will stop asking and stop wondering all together. But in the back of your mind you keep saying “no no no I don’t want to be in love, I can’t be in love, I don’t know how to be in love.” Are you sure you’re not in love? I’ll let you decide that one…
9. You find any reason to hang out with him.
Being in college often doesn’t lend itself much free time, but every spare moment you have you wish you were spending it with them. From Seasons dates, to running errands around campus, to even hanging out with his smelly friends while they do their “guy stuff”, you’re happy doing whatever as long as it’s with him.
8. You day dream a little too much about your future together.
These four years go by fast, what happens next? Even though classes just began, you already find yourself day dreaming about your prospective life. As one thought leads to another, you’re already picking a house, choosing a color for the kid’s room and changing your monogram… all of a sudden MGM sounds just as good as MBM. Fantasizing about your life as his future wife screams “Help me, I’m in love!”
7. Every love song makes you smile.
Before, the thought of those sappy love songs made you sick, but now you can’t get enough of One Directions new hit “Little Things”. Every song on the radio seems to become the theme song of your life and you find yourself putting Jack Johnsons “Do You Remember” on repeat because of that one silly line. Let’s face it– you’re in love and signing about it only makes it better!
6. You’re strangely happy all the time.
Being in a fantastic mood 24/7 is hard to come by, but not for you these days! Even in the dreary winter everything around you turns shinny and pretty. And those annoying birds that wake you up every morning? You even start enjoying them because how nice of them to sing a song for you. That quiz you got a 77 on when hoping for a 100 last week? Yeah what about that, there will always be more! That girl you use to hate because she smiled at your boyfriend that one time… I guess she’s not that bad after all. Love does all these crazy things like make you insanely happy all the time.
5. Everything they do is so cute it melts your heart.
You can spend all day with them but you can never have enough. The way they look, the way they smell and just everything about them makes you so happy you can’t help but stare. Even after you get out of the “honeymoon phase” of those first couple months, you still feel the same way about them. Their nasty habits of biting their nails and wearing their pants just a little too low don’t really bother you because you realize that those qualities make up who they are as a person. The way his hair looks when he first wakes up or when he leaves the door open while he goes to the bathroom makes you laugh and melts your heart little by little. When you love someone you take their good with their bad because to you it’s all the same.
4. You love everything they hate about themselves.
Nobody is perfect– especially guys! They hate little things about themselves just as much as girls do. Lucky for you and him, you like all of his little imperfections. The dimples in his back, the freckles on his shoulders and the scar above his lip are all things he wishes he didn’t have. Other people make look at these things as imperfections or things they find weird and unattractive, but not you and that’s when you just know.
3. You sacrifice your happiness for his.
One of the biggest parts of being in a relationship is sacrifice and willingness to go the extra distance for that person. Many people put themselves before others until they find someone they truly love, then their whole world changes. At this moment you care more about his happiness than your own simply because it brings you pure joy. As Lana Del Ray says: “when someone else’s happiness is your happiness, that is love.” So if you give up watching Gossip Girl on Monday nights just to let your guy watch his silly football game, that’s love.
2. They don’t go running for the hills even after they’ve seen your dark side.
It’s hard to decide when to cross certain bridges in a relationship and how long it takes for you to get comfortable with each other. Letting them in and showing them your dark side isn’t always easy, but it’s always worth it. Sara Kay once said “There’s nothing more beautiful than the way the ocean refuses to stop kissing the shoreline, no matter how many times it’s sent away.” If your boyfriend continues to come back even after he sees what you look like when you first wake up in the morning, or if he refuses to leave you alone curled up on the ground when you’re sick with the flu, it’s safe to say you’re in love.
1. They are your very best friend.
If your boyfriend is also your best friend, then you have hit the jack pot. Tim McGraw says it perfectly “life with you makes perfect sense, you’re my best friend.”