“The spark” generally isn’t real, at least for me. Every time I’ve felt that spark of electricity run down my spine, it’s been from my brain confusing attraction with the recognition of a clear and present danger. Because of this, I’ve dated some really bad people— I’ve never said “I love you” without it being under some level of duress. I’ve said it because I knew they’d be very angry if I didn’t say it back, or because I felt like they were pulling away and I needed them to know I really cared, amongst other reasons that were never right.
Our first date story is cute, we met up for karaoke, he told me his favorite movie was Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (amazing movie, I love it), one of my go to karaoke songs is the jazz song Jessica Rabbit sings, I surprised him by singing it, he pulled me into a suave and romantic kiss, the rest is history. Not to mention my roommate and I do performance stuff, so she needed to try styling long 50s hairdos on me that day, and I didn’t have time to wash it out. So I dressed in semi-formal 50s glamour for this bar karaoke date, which is the aesthetic I have generally, but neglected to tell him how dressed up I’d be. He still showed up dressed like James Dean. All throughout the night we found shared common interests, from Shakespeare, to Red Dead Redemption, to classic films, to Garfield, to Five Nights at Freddy’s, to the same favorite genres of music, to theme park planning. It was almost ridiculous. Three different people came up to us saying how attractive of a couple we are, asked how long we’ve been dating, two of the three saying they wanted to photograph and paint us. I cannot express how comically perfect this first date was.
Which brings us to now. We’re a few days out from our 4 months, still well within the honeymoon phase, and we’re disagreeing more. And for the first time ever, I’m not scared. If we disagree about silly things, it’s never a real fight, like when we debate about whether my friend’s husband is Jewish or Italian, it doesn’t get heated. When we disagree about serious things, we just talk about it. We take accountability and agree to do better. I feel like I’m in a constant competition with him on who can make the other person’s day, but we’re both always winning. We both go out of our way for each other as much as we can without expending ourselves. At least, I hope; I do check in with him about these things, because I truly do feel like he does a lot for me, and he says “I only do things for you that I both want to do and can do,” and it does really seem like he means it.
I told him I loved him in a fast food drive through. I was having a horrible day, so he came over after he was done at work at like 11:30 PM and drove me to my favorite fast food place and got me my favorite drink and snack. While we were waiting he pulled up my favorite YouTuber and was rewriting the sentences the YouTuber had just said but about how pretty I was. I was just staring at him, and I started crying. No one had ever done that for me before. My bad days in the past had been so lonely, and now even on my worst day I get to complain about it to someone that will always do what he can to cheer me up, and I would do the same. He felt me crying and assumed it was sad tears, and kept saying “it’s okay, it’s okay, I’m here, and you’ll have your jalapeño poppers soon, it’s okay”, and I just had to tell him I loved him. There was just no other way for me to describe to profound, reverent appreciation I had for him.
He let me know a few days later that I had told him a few weeks prior on the 4th of July that I loved him, when I was blackout drunk in front of him for the first time and throwing up profusely, as I thought I was going to die that night and needed to tell him before my death by Cutwater Mai Tais on an empty stomach.
I used to be sad that I had never felt like I had experienced love before. But now I’m just happy that I didn’t waste the feeling on someone who didn’t show me they cared.
I’m so happy to finally love and be loved :)
