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How Do You Know If You Love Someone? 25 Common Signs to Look for
It is often easy to identify a crush, but how do you know if you love someone? Learn more about love and understand your feelings better with these key signs.
There are seven stages in attraction in Arabic literature — love being the third and purest one. Falling in love is the goal for most people when it comes to romantic relationships and some argue that there’s no better feeling than it! So, how to know if you love someone? Alas, figuring this out is difficult as all these stages of attraction bring with them some rush of dopamine, which makes the lines between them blurry.
For example, most people would say that they fell in love for the first time when they were teenagers. However, this is an age group where people’s emotions are ruled by their hormones, making every feeling augmented and decreasing one’s ability to think rationally. Hence, those butterflies in the stomach one seeing one’s crush walk into class may merely be intense infatuation instead of love.
Arguably, falling in love does not mean you cannot think straight, are blinded by a gush of emotions, or are placing someone on a pedestal. In fact, experiencing true love may make a person feel more composed, grounded, and grateful than ever. Instead of turning a blind eye to your partner’s flaws, you would be well aware of them and yet accept them wholly into your life if you’re in love.
Moreover, love is something you experience over time and definitely doesn’t take place “at first sight.” This article is here to bash all those immature stereotypes about love with 25 surefire signs that you are falling in love with someone. Read on.
How to Know If You Are in Love with Someone?
1. You Start Off by Feeling Ecstatic
The beginning stages of falling in love may seem a bit stereotypical. This is because your feelings are intense and heightened during this phase. According to psychologist, Dr. Robert J. Sternberg’s Triangular Theory of Love, it comprises three factors — intimacy (closeness and connectedness), passion (physical and emotional arousal), and commitment (the resolve to maintain the love in the long run).
In addition to this, research suggests that a person’s serotonin levels may drop as testosterone and dopamine levels kick in, making one swoon and even obsess over their crush a bit (1). If you find yourself experiencing such strong, euphoric feelings, it is a key sign that you are in love with someone.
2. Then, It Simmers Down to Feelings of Comfort
Unlike superficial attraction, real love doesn’t make you place someone on a pedestal for too long. In its true essence, love comforts you and allows you to be yourself in the company of your romantic partner. Instead of having your heart beat faster in their presence, you see your partner/crush as a human being and appreciate little things about them.
If you are growing fonder of someone because of their authenticity as well as imperfections, it is a sign that you are falling in love with them.
Read More: 30 Signs a Man Loves You Deeply: How to Recognize True Love in Relationships
3. You Prioritize Spending Quality Time with Them
You immerse yourself in experiences with this person and have deep conversations with them. Time flies whenever you’re around this person, so you savor every minute with them, even if your interactions aren’t that substantial. For example, sipping coffee together in silence.
4. You Prioritize Their Needs
In mere attraction, we are usually kind to our partners and care about their likes and dislikes. However, the focus of our feelings is on our romantic needs and less on our crush. When it comes to love, our feelings are a bit more selfless as we may sometimes overlook ourselves and focus more on the needs of the other person. This is a major indicator of how to know if you love someone and that takes us to the next point.
5. Their Happiness Makes You Happy
Every person has some quirky attributes about themselves, which can’t be categorized into good or bad traits. They are simply unique characteristics such as a loud singing voice, nose grunts while laughing, preference for schedule/spontaneity, vibrant taste in fashion, etc. If you find someone’s quirks endearing, it may be a sign that you love them.
8. You Feel Better About Yourself
Here’s another striking difference between infatuation and love. When we’re infatuated with a person, we may think they are out of our league or somehow of a higher status than us. However, loving someone may make you feel better about yourself. You may feel more self-assured, grounded, and composed when you’re in love with someone, likely because that person makes you feel good about yourself. This is a healthy sign!
9. You’re Willing to Make Sacrifices
Selflessness is a great indicator of knowing you love someone. You may experience that you’re comfortable making small sacrifices for this person and experience positive feelings after doing so.
10. You Value Their Opinions
Respect and trust are major aspects of love, in contrast to mere infatuation. When we respect and trust someone, we naturally start valuing their opinions and insights. If you don’t seem to value this person’s opinions on most topics, chances are what you’re feeling is not love.
Read More: How to Know if Someone's in Love with You? 37 Telltale Signs
11. You Suddenly Have Platonic Feelings for Other Attractive People
We can be infatuated with multiple people at one point as it doesn’t need much. Good looks, charm, 1-2 intimate encounters, and most of us develop a crush just like that. However, true love takes time and has a stronger foundation. When we love someone, all our romantic feelings are channeled toward them, and we feel like they’re enough! Hence, more likely than not, any feelings of romantic attraction we may have for other attractive people in our lives start taking a backseat as it seems like we’ve found the one.
12. You (Subconsciously) Imitate Them
This is more true when you’ve spent a long time knowing this person you might be in love with. If you start noticing that you’ve subtly started imitating the way they speak or act, or have started taking interest in their interests, it is a sweet sign that you may be falling in love with them.
13. Their Presence Soothes You
There’s nothing more comforting to you than the presence of the person you love. You may observe that no matter how bad your day has been, just them being with you assuages your pain. You find that this person is your safe space! If you’re typically an anxious person, you may see that their presence calms you down, reduces your stress levels, and helps you see things with a positive outlook.
14. Your Feelings for Them Are Different from Past Partners
Falling in love with someone is less usual than having a crush or romantic chemistry with someone. The latter may have applied to most of your past relationships where there is attraction, but you are still figuring out how serious your feelings for them may be. But, when you’re in love with someone, the feelings are more deep-rooted and intense, which is why it may feel different from your other experiences.
15. Your Friends See a Change in You
This may sound like a rom-com cliche but is albeit real! When you love someone, you may not realize it at first but the change in your behavior will be very apparent to the people you spend the most time with, especially your close friends. If they notice that you seem perkier than usual and seem smitten by someone, chances are you are!
Read More: 31 Most Promising Signs He Cares About You Deeply
16. Their Good Side Seems to Outweigh Their Flaws
We’re not saying that when we love someone, we’re blinded to their flaws. What we’re saying is in fact, the opposite. When feelings are real, you’ll notice that you are very much aware of this person’s flaws and imperfections. However, you value and appreciate their positive traits so much that they easily overshadow their flaws.
17. You May Experience Mild Jealousy
Now, before you judge this point too harshly, allow us to clarify — we too believe that jealousy is a foul emotion that is best to avoid. However, that applies to extreme, obsessive forms of jealousy wherein the emotion becomes stronger than the person themselves. Mild jealousy, on the other hand, is just a healthy indicator that you wish your romantic feelings to be mutually exclusive.
That said, we highly encourage you to refrain from getting jealous when your partner/crush is spending time with their friends, has a friendly attitude toward most people, likes giving attention to others, and receives the same generosity in return. These are good things in a healthy individual’s life and should be encouraged by a loving partner. Getting jealous because of a partner’s simple, day-to-day interactions is not only ridiculous but also a red flag!
Read More: 21 Sure And Strong Signs Someone Is Thinking About You
18. But, Mostly, It’s Trust
If your feelings are genuine, you’ll know that despite those cute jealous moments, you deeply trust this person and know that they’ll never intentionally hurt you. Such a level of security shows that your deep feelings are a lot more than just infatuation.
19. You Feel Secure Even Through Your Arguments
Just because you love someone, it doesn’t mean that you’ll never disagree with them or have any argument. However, when you love this person, you feel a deep-rooted sense of security even when you’re arguing. It’s like, this person is not a stranger you cannot trust, but someone very dear to you, and no matter the fight, you’ll eventually work things out.
20. You Deeply Understand Them
The reason why “love at first sight” is among the most nonsensical myths out there is that you cannot love someone if you don’t really know them well. Love is the feeling of absolute adoration and acceptance of a person — all their strengths, weaknesses, virtues, and flaws. You know you’re in love with them only if you have a deep understanding of who this person is, which drives your strong romantic feelings for them.
21. Commitment Comes Easy to You
When you know someone so deeply and have such warm feelings for them, it isn’t hard to imagine a future with them. In fact, thinking about your long-term relationship is one of the things that instantly puts a smile on your face, which is a telltale sign of falling in love with someone.
22. You Desire Their Warmth And Touch
Physical intimacy is a huge part of romantic love, more than any other form of love. Hence, if you have intense feelings of respect and adoration for someone, but don’t seem to crave their warmth and touch, your feelings may be more platonic than romantic.
23. You Like Introducing Them to Friends And Family
When you love someone, especially in its early stages, you may feel super proud of your partner and want to introduce them to other important people in your life, such as friends and family.
24. You Become More Forgiving of Them
Everyone makes mistakes, no matter how good their intentions are most of the time. The same may apply to this special person in your life. However, if you love them, it is likely that you’re more forgiving of them than others and are unlikely to hold a grudge against them.
25. You Wish to Stick Together Through Thick And Thin
The last but most important sign that you may be in love with someone is that you wish to be with them not only through the good parts but through all the challenges life throws at you. Such committed relationships based on the foundation of love are healthy and last in the long run.
“How do you know if you love someone” can be a difficult question to answer as attraction manifests in different forms. While it doesn’t mean that other forms of attraction are necessarily superficial or unhealthy, love is certainly is pinnacle of attraction and its purest form. Yet, love is the most natural and easy feeling for one to have, which at times makes it difficult to recognize it. The above-mentioned signs are here to help you understand your feelings. We hope you enjoyed reading this article.
Sources:
1. The neuroendocrinology of love - PMC
