Butterflies, blushed cheeks, silliness, googly-eyes, romance and more. Love can bring so much happiness and so many feelings. But how do you actually know you are in love? That’s a question one redditer brought to the masses. Check out some of the answers below.
1. How do you feel?
You’re in love when you actually care about how the other person feels, not how they make you feel. You’re in love when you are willing to make sacrifices for that person’s well-being and happiness because you care about them.
2. Not Terrifying
I asked my dad this when I was dating my first girlfriend. [He said,] “You know you are in love when you can no longer imagine living your life without this person, and the idea of spending the rest of it with them is inviting, not terrifying.”
3. Work
This probably sounds trite, but “love” is work. How hard you’re willing or want to work on a relationship at it’s worst is a good indication of if you’re in love vs just infatuated with someone. Infatuation dies when things get hard, but love will want to keep working to persevere (oh man, this does sound trite…but it’s true). Stick with me here, despite sounding like a self help book:
Being in love is being selfless, patient, and basically looking at the worst of someone along with the best and going “yep….that’s for me.” Infatuation feels a lot like love, especially with how media plays it out. Idealization and thinking someone is “perfect” isn’t love. If you have someone who you can be 100% yourself around, and they have the freedom to do the same, you’re getting closer. If you find your happiness in wanting to make the other person happy, it’s a fairly good indication you really are in love. It’s really mostly about wanting to put the other person first.
4. Peace
For me it was a quiet inner peace. A feeling that life would be life with her and something far more insignificant without. Just my 2 cents after 9 years.
5. Breathlessness
Being in love is breathlessness, it is excitement, it is the promulgation of promises of eternal passion… But that is not love. That is just being ‘in love,’ which any fool can do. Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident. Those that truly love, have roots that grow towards each other underground, and when all the pretty blossoms have fallen from their branches, they find that they are one tree and not two. Love is a temporary madness; it erupts like volcanoes and then subsides. And when it subsides, you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because that is what love is.
6. Butterflies
When all the new wears off, you don’t have butterflies every time they call or text or you know you’re going to see them, you’re not getting all giddy about “firsts” in your relationship, you’re no longer both on your best behavior, you can see their faults and let them see yours, you’ve survived a few disagreements, you’re not boning every time you catch some alone time, the sex isn’t mind blowing every single time. And after all that, they’re still your favorite person. You still do things for each other, for the simple joy of making them happy. The absence of the rose colored glasses of new lust hasn’t been replaced with resentment, it has evolved into comfort, stability, and security with that person.
7. Happy
I know I’m starting to fall in love when it’s not just about the person being attractive or making me happy or anything like that, but rather I couldn’t stand the thought to see her afraid or in pain. Like her pain becomes mine, if that makes sense.
