This Is What Being Someone’s ‘Person’ Really Means

It’s that understood inseparable bond that came to us with all of our friends so naturally when we were children, and grew rarer along the way to adulthood. Now we are lucky to find just one person whom we can confide in even a little bit. Sometimes these connections happen instantaneously. Other times they are a gradual falling into step with another human being. Either way, your person is your person and you are so lucky to be theirs too.

Being someone’s person means that you can read their mood no matter how good they think they are at hiding it. You can feel their anger and sadness, and you know the difference between when they stem from a real problem or when they are merely tired and hungry. It means you love them on their bad days just as much as you do on their good days. It means sharing their pain and trying to refrain from hunting down the ones who caused it. It means sharing in their joy and feeling a pride for them that runs deeper than any pride you’d have for yourself. It means moving through life a little less alone.

Being someone’s person means that the usual elements of life do not apply to your bond. You not only can survive human error, distance, time, and miscommunication, but thrive by it as overcoming it makes you two even stronger. It means that there is no such thing as too busy, too tired, or too far. It means that even in times of frustration, they are the first person you need to talk to. It means that even when time or distance gets the best of you, the period is so brief and the reunion becomes that much more meaningful.

Being someone’s person means that you don’t need to flex your best and instead can bare your worst to them, and they to you. There is no need to impress or hide embarrassment because you have been through so much together that you don’t believe anything could shake that connection. You two have been through life changing phases together, loss, celebration, drifting and coming back together. The ordinary suddenly becomes extraordinary as you never thought you could have so much fun grocery shopping, or doing schoolwork, or start a conversation in tears and end it with laughter. You two just make each other’s lives better, which is all we can really ask for from someone that we love.

Being someone’s person has been described beautifully in the 2012 film Frances Ha. In it, Frances says,

“It’s that thing when you’re with someone, and you love them and they know it, and they love you and you know it… but it’s a party… and you’re both talking to other people, and you’re laughing and shining… and you look across the room and catch each other’s eyes… but – but not because you’re possessive, or it’s precisely sexual… but because… that is your person in this life. And it’s funny and sad, but only because this life will end, and it’s this secret world that exists right there in public, unnoticed, that no one else knows about. It’s sort of like how they say that other dimensions exist all around us, but we don’t have the ability to perceive them. That’s – That’s what I want out of a relationship. Or just life, I guess.”

Being someone’s person means that you have love in your life that will last as close to forever as this world allows.

It’s one of the most beautiful implied contracts deeply embedded in a genuine connection with another. Your person is your person and you are so lucky to be theirs too.