This Is How You’ll Know They’re ‘The One’

In each piece I write, I always make it a point to stress falling in love with yourself first. Every article on any social networking site, self help book or cliche saying your friends feel obligated to tell you— while they hold your hair and rub your back as you throw up all of the vegas bombs you took in the last one’s honor— will stress falling in love with yourself first.

Especially, if you ever want someone to fall in love with you. Especially if you ever want to fall in love, right back. Especially with the one.

I could rattle off dozens of little sayings and quotes and tidbits of advice. I could even make a cute checklist of how to heal or how to grow or how to love yourself genuine and to love yourself kind. I could make a checklist or write something like “12 Reasons You Know Someone is the One”.

But I won’t do that. Not the cookie cutter way, anyhow.

It would sound as empty as it would feel to write. There is no checklist. There are no 12 reasons. There are no darling sayings or tid bits of advice or magic spell or magic book or magic order when it comes to finding the one.

Why? Because you are on this hunt for a particular feeling and qualities of a love we saw in a movie or read about in a book once. And you are looking everywhere and you’re getting frustrated and sad when you keep having to recreate the definition of what the one actually means. You keep thinking you have found this precious one. And then you realize this one, was worse than the last one. And now you’re disappointed and you are emotionally drained. You are chasing this idea of a person and you are chasing after the fireworks and the mad, passionate scenes in The Notebook and you’re getting tired because you can’t find it. You’re getting exhausted because you know you won’t find it.

First and foremost, the one will not exhaust you. That’s it, plain and simple. You could stop reading right now and have all of the wisdom you need to weed out those who are not in your best interest.

The one is you. When I say that the one is you— I mean it both literally and figuratively. There is no finding it. There is no searching for it. And let me tell you something contrary to the popular belief, there are no fireworks. What you are looking for, is already within you.

The one will be you. Or rather— this person will bring you, out of you. You will finally understand why loving yourself first needed to be done because they will crave the love you’ve learned to self induce. They want and need that same genuine and kind love you continuously practice on all of the people you have chased that were not them. And the best part of them wanting and needing that love you give, is they reciprocate it. Just like they need to receive it, they need to give it. Just like you.

The one will not be kissing in the pouring rain, it’s them pulling the car up to the front so you don’t get wet. They are not the fireworks, they are that 60 seconds of silence right before the grand finale. The one isn’t holding your door open for you with a bouquet of roses, it’s folding their socks and ordering something they would like even when they aren’t with you, so they can have your leftovers later.

The one doesn’t demand you act a certain way. The one does not control or dictate. It is like staring at your own reflection of who you want and who you are into still water and diving head first without dipping your toes in to test the temperature. There is no second guessing or begging or wondering if you are good enough for them or if they are good enough for you. It’s trying everything you’ve never done and biting the bullet with things that scare you and it’s communicating your thoughts and feelings in a healthy way. The one will encourage you to do better and to be better. Not even with just their words. But by their presence in your life. They pull the best out of you. They pull the absolute best parts out of the dark place you swore light would never touch again. The one is falling in love with yourself first and falling in love with yourself all over again, every single morning— because they don’t let you do otherwise. The one does not complete you. They help you, complete you. And you do not complete them. You help them, complete them. The one is your greatest friendship, your greatest laugh and your greatest, never ending learning experience about them, about you and about the world you inhabit.

The one is full of forgiveness and overlooking the failed attempts of those before each other. It’s respecting the long walk it’s taken for you both to get here— not growing jealous, anxious or insecure by it.

The one feels a lot like taking your shoes off after that long walk. The one is a sigh of relief. The one is that you finally feel at home.

The best part about the one? You’re not exhausted anymore.