The Little Things

When I was younger my friends and I were always making lists of qualities and attributes that our dream man would possess. 

We included things like "romantic, funny, honest, smart", sometimes even getting as detailed as "brown hair, green eyes, 6'3 - oh and drives a convertible.

Convertibles were the shit in the 90's.

As I've gotten older though, I've learned that those things almost never matter as much as you think they will.

It's the little things that make you fall in love.

By the time you make it to 25 - or more conservatively 30 - there are very few women in the world who can say that they've never met a man who was the perfect guy on paper: loyal, honest, handsome, stable, everything you're supposed to want, that they just never were able to fall in love with.

A man that is perfect in so many ways it's infuriating, but for whatever reason, they never become more than a relationship that almost happened, but didn't.

  Instead we fall in love with people who on paper probably look all wrong for us. People who don't look very much like that ideal man we'd built in our heads with bullet point requirements and the perfect inseam length. All because of a bunch of little, unexpected things.

The way that you haven't had to tell them how you like your coffee since the very first time they ever asked.

The way they reach for your hand when they're driving.

The nickname they gave you on your third date that feels more like your name now than your legal one.

The little things that they do for you that seem to anyone else as completely inconsequential, but ultimately show you how much they truly understand you at your core.

The love of my life was 17 years older than me, and took 3 years to tell me he loved me.
We had an almost insurmountable number of obstacles, but he was the first guy who ever held my hand in the car. He had a dead-pan sense of humor, and even when I was super pissed, he could make me laugh. When we slept he wrapped his entire body around mine like a ladle, and even though he thought he was a terrible dancer, he danced with me. In clubs, in the living room, at concerts.
I loved that.

And that's how love happens.
Unexpectedly, out of nowhere, and with someone you might never have imagined for yourself.

You don't always fall for the cookie cutter definition of perfect.

More often than not, you love the one who drives you fucking crazy, someone a little broken, someone unexpected. Maybe you bicker with them more often than you planned, or you don't love that they're a bartender with a law degree they don't use and no plans to ever change that, but you love how they tickle your back and kiss your neck, and that weird little patch of hair on their lower back, right above their ass.

Bottom line is: they have a way of catching your heart in their hands like a frantic bird, and calming it.

And in a world full of potentially "better" options, you feel like they're the only perfect option for you.