Date Someone Who Makes You Forget All Your Own Rules

Being sure of what you want is a great thing, a beautiful thing. Having standards is fantastic. Deciding that you know what you’re looking for and what you deserve is something you should be proud of. Really, it is. It’s good to know what we want out of life, out of ourselves, out of others.

You should be proud of your standards, of your rules. You really should.

But real love won’t care about your rules. And if it’s real love, you shouldn’t care either.

Real love won’t care about the list of parameters you’ve set for the person you think you should be with. It won’t care about a “type” or standards or whatever metaphorical checklist you’ve had all your life that has told you who you should be with and who to let go of because they don’t happen tick all of the boxes.

Real love, true love, deep love, the love you should actually be excited about, won’t care about your standards. Any of them.

So when you find yourself falling in spite of them, trust it. Trust it, trust yourself, and let yourself fall.

Because while you’re proud of those rules, they aren’t everything. While you may have standards, they shouldn’t shut anyone out who has the potential to be magic. While you might have a checklist, the biggest box to check off is simple.

Do you love them?

And if the answer is yes, that’s all that matters.

Dating someone shouldn’t be amount fulfilling some sort of scorecard or checking all of the boxes on a list.

Love shouldn’t be about rules.

So while it’s good to know who you are and know what you want, when you find someone who you can date and not think about where they are on some sort of internalized metaphorical scale of dateability, you should hold onto them. When you find someone who makes you focus on the now instead of the future with what you think you might want, you should never let them go.

When you find someone who makes you forget the rules you once had, you should do whatever you can to keep them.

This person should make you better, should be what you deserve, yes. But you shouldn’t be sizing them up. You shouldn’t be thinking, “Do they meet this hypothetical mark I set myself before meeting someone?” You should just be able to sit there and love them. Wholly. Unquestionably. Truly.

So when you find someone who makes you hold on, instead of worrying, it’s real. When you find someone who makes you laugh, instead of thinking about whether or not they’re funny, it’s real. When you find someone who makes you forget about rules, it’s real.

Because real love, true love should make you do just that.

Stop.

You’ll stop counting, stop comparing, stop overthinking. You’ll just stop.

And when you stop, you’ll focus on this person, this beautiful person, who is standing in front of you just waiting for you to let down your walls, put away your rulebook, and love them back.