A friend recently asked me how I knew J was “the one.”
My answer? I didn’t.
I don’t believe in soulmates. I believe that marriage is damn hard. And I believe we are continually evolving as people so that the person you married 3/5/10/20 years ago may not necessarily be the same person with whom you vowed to spend the rest of your life.
But what I did tell my friend was that my relationship with J started out differently than all my past relationships.
For one, we were friends first…and even best friends for a few months before taking it to the next level.
Secondly, his actions spoke louder than words.
He seemed to constantly want to be with me. For example, whenever he’d go out with friends, he would always ask if I wanted to come along — almost as if he were proud to be dating me and couldn’t wait to show me off.
(This is not to say my other boyfriends were ashamed of me and kept me hidden from their friends and family. Rather, they were much more conservative in that they waited quite some time before introducing me to them.)
A night early in our relationship when we were trying our best to look badass.
(My sister calls his picture “Drunk and Drunker.”)
I also remember a time when I had the day off while he needed to go in to work; he asked me to hang out at his place, make myself at home, and even go bug his roommates if I got bored, so that I would be right there when he returned home from the office. And this was just a couple of weeks into the relationship!
There was also the time he visited Hong Kong for two weeks. We weren’t officially boyfriend-and-girlfriend yet, but I had asked him to give me a call when he arrived so that I would know he got there safely.
He called me EVERY SINGLE DAY.
The late Randy Pausch wrote to his daughter, “When it comes to men who are romantically interested in you, it’s really simple. Just ignore everything they say and only pay attention to what they do.”
As a lover of words, I have fallen into the trap of the suave talker too many times. And if my daughters are anything like me, I’m sure that they will too.
You can be sure I will pass along this piece of advice.
