20 Little Things That Let You Know It’s Love

1. Love is… the feeling that compels you you forgive your significant other for their deeply misguided taste in peanut butter, and purchase the smooth kind instead of the crunchy.

2. Caring enough about somebody to not sleep diagonally, but instead letting them have their share of the bed.

3. The truce you make with their evil cat, even though it makes your allergies act up and constantly stares you down as if they know you are not worthy. When you love someone, you look beyond the transgressions of their pet.

4. The emotion that convinces you to let the dog sleep on the bed, even if that means they’ll end up licking your toes and wedging themselves between you and their owner.

5. Waking up early enough to walk their dog for them, even without their asking you to.

6. The feeling that compels you to save a little bit of hot water for the other person’s shower.

7. Stopping by their favorite restaurant on your way to their apartment to pick up their favorite meal when they’ve had a bad day, even if their apartment is far out of the way of yours and you’re tired and you didn’t have standing plans with them, but you want to do your part to make them feel better anyway.

8. Knowing the other person’s coffee order by heart.

9. Forgiving someone for having insane relatives that they had no choice in being related to, and understanding that sometimes there really is no helping whom we must love by birth.

10. Letting someone listen (for the thousandth time) to the song they’re currently obsessed with. Even if it grates on you like no other, it’ll make them happy for three minutes and that is worth it.

11. The feeling that keeps them from listening to it in your presence, out of courtesy.

12. Keeping a bag packed for an impromptu getaway for just the two of you, or at least having the kind of bag-packing finesse where you can throw two pairs of jeans and some underwear into the gym bag you swear you’re going to use and calling it a day.

13. Feeling comfortable enough to poop at their place. Maybe not peeing with the bathroom open, but, you know. Baby steps.

14. Knowing that you don’t have to like their friends, but that you do have to respect their places in your significant other’s life, and actively trying to be polite in their company.

15. Having the self-control that allows you to forgive someone when they accidentally tape over your DVR recording of your favorite show.

16. Expressing the common decency to help them finish, even if you’ve hit your own O 15 minutes ago.

17. Retweeting, and not just faving.

18. Refraining from uploading a picture onto Instagram where you know they think they look particularly heinous, no matter how many forgiving filters you try to use on that baby.

19. Not stabbing them with a fork for stealing a bite of food off of your plate without asking. Well, maybe you stab them, but you try not to make them bleed.

20. Letting them pick which toppings to get on a pizza. Well, maybe it’s just entertaining their suggestions. No, better yet, love is just pizza.