Love is awesome. We love our friends, spouses, children and pets. We hear people say they love something or someone all the time. The word love and its meaning get thrown around in our society with little thought. However, how do you know when you love someone?
Most people would say having butterflies or thinking about someone all the time. This is true at the beginning of a relationship, but there is more to it than that. Here are some ways to know when you love someone.
1. That Feeling of Elation
When starting a new relationship, everyone has that elated feeling. You get excited, happy, and nervous when you are going to see this person. You want to ensure you look great and put your best foot forward. Those butterflies are a sign that you are falling in love with someone.
2. You Enjoy Being Around Them
You want to spend as much time with them as possible, within reason. This can be in person, online, or over the phone. However, this does not mean you should ignore family and friends to spend time with your new love.
3. You Want to Support Them
No matter what they are going through, you want to support them. This could be anything from a job loss, recovering from an addiction, or recovering from a health issue. It could also be getting ready for an interview, starting a new job, or moving to a new place.
4. Meeting Your Friends
Bringing them around to meet your friends is a big deal. You want your friends to like the person you are seeing, and you want your partner to fit in. This is an important step in the relationship and shows each party that you love each of them enough to introduce them to each other.
5. Meeting Your Parents
This is an even bigger step. Meeting your significant other’s parents is a very special meeting. It shows that your partner values and loves you by introducing you to their family. It also shows their parents that your partner thinks they will approve of you.
6. You Miss Them
Whether they are going out of town on a business trip or to work for the day, you miss them. In doing so, you text them or call them on their lunch break. When you reconnect again, it’s even better because you are back with the one you love. You long for the days you can spend together rather than be apart.
7. You Become a Better Person
When you love someone, they will help you become a better person. They will do this by encouraging you and not holding you back. You also do this for them. By doing so, you bring out the best in each other, which other people will also notice.
8. You Pray for Them
Prayer is one of the most powerful things we can do for our loved ones. When you love someone, you will pray for them at all hours during the day and night. Even in the wee morning hours when everyone else is asleep.
9. You Study the Bible Together
Taking time to have Bible study together shows that you love someone. It shows that you want to strengthen your bond with each other and God. This is also a good way to learn each other’s favorite topics, verses, and passages in the Bible.
10. You Try New Things
You will try new things with your love. This could be anything from a new cuisine, a new activity like dancing or skydiving, or a new movie or music genre. This opens you up to new experiences and makes your bond even stronger, especially if you are both doing something for the first time.
11. You Enjoy Spending Time Together
You like spending time together. This could be anything from going out to dinner, watching a movie at home, or attending your niece’s birthday party together. It doesn’t matter what you are doing, alone or with a group, you like spending time with this person.
12. You Feel Safe Around Them
This person makes you feel safe. You know you can talk to them about anything or tell them anything, and it will be okay. The first thing you want to do after having a bad day is tell them about it and then spend some downtime with them. You know that whatever you tell them won’t go beyond the two of you, which adds to the layer of safety that you feel.
13. You Worry about Them
You're concerned about them, especially if they're sick, hurt, or going through a painful experience. You want to do everything in your power to help or make it go away, but if you can’t, you are content with just being there.
14. You Connect
After spending a lot of time together, you become extensions of each other. You have the ability to know what the other person is thinking or finish their sentences. Knowing what the other person likes to eat, you order accordingly. There's a great synchronization between you two, and you can read each other's minds.
15. You Want What’s Best for Them
No matter what happens, you want what’s best for the other person. Loving someone with compassion is important to helping, supporting, and understanding someone in a healthy relationship.
16. Your Relationship Feels Easy
You get along well and can talk about and through things. You rarely ever argue, and if you do, you rectify it easily. You can tell what the other one is thinking and feeling. When you love someone, it’s easy to feel you have a very chill but committed relationship.
17. You Find Yourself Looking at Them
If you find yourself staring at someone for an extended period, you are falling in love with them. It’s all in the eye contact.
18. They Make You Laugh
Not everyone has to be a comedian, but it’s always great when someone has a good sense of humor. When your partner makes you laugh, it’s good for both of you and helps make life brighter.
19. You Love Their Quirks
Everyone has something or a few things that make them unique. When you can pick up on these and love what makes your partner who they are, it helps keep your relationship going strong.
20. You Dream of a Future with Them
One big clue you love someone is when you think past the here and now and start dreaming of a future with them. You think about your wedding and what your life will look like together.
22. You Can Be Yourself with Them
You are okay being yourself with them and doing things in your home that you wouldn’t dream of doing in public. Things like singing in the shower even though you can’t carry a tune in a bucket, making bad jokes, and other random things. You know your partner won’t judge you, and chances are they have their own list of things they would only do around you.
Because you love and appreciate them, you value their opinion. You want to find out their opinions on various topics or how they perceive you taking on a new job, going on a trip with your buddies, and so on.
24. You Tell Them You Love Them Often
Regardless of whether you have officially professed your love or not, you tell them you love them all the time. This is more than just when you go to work and come home, go to bed, or wake up. It could be while they are cooking dinner, texting them during a meeting, or calling them before they leave to come home. Any time you get the chance to tell them you love them, you do.
This could even be through a note in a lunch box or wallet. It could be a greeting card you leave on the dashboard or a gas or restaurant gift card you leave in the glove box. You don’t always have to show love verbally; actions speak just as loudly.
25. Everything Reminds You of Them
You may hear the song that played on the radio on your first date and think of them. The special at the coffee shop is their favorite flavor. You are grocery shopping, and a special snack flavor catches your attention that they would like. When even the smallest things remind you of someone, you know you love them.
It’s easy for people to mix up infatuation with love and wonder if they love someone. Our society puts such a significant emphasis on infatuation over true love. By keeping the above points in mind, you can know for sure when you love someone.