Finding The One?

Note: As always, follow my journey on my personal blog, So about what I said...

On a sweltering day in early August 1996, I lay curled up in my bed, my leg in a big metal frame with pins shooting every which way and trying to recover from the surgery I’d had a month earlier.

Now, I’m not sure if I was still woozy and out of it from the anesthesia or just plain bored, but that afternoon, I proclaimed, in all seriousness mind you, to my trusty diary that (and I’m quoting word-for-hopeless-word here)

“I can see myself spending the rest of my life with him.”

The him I was referring to was obviously Crush Boy (see previous columns), but C’MON!! I HAD JUST TURNED 15. What in the heck was I thinking?.

Back then, I wish I’d had a handy-dandy checklist like some of the detailed ones you find online these days to see if he is indeed The One.

Maybe it’ll save you 12 years of torture so you wouldn’t have to go through the agony I did. But for old time’s sake, let’s analyze it according to my experiences with Crush Boy.

The true test has come….

The true test has come….

1. He understands:
Isn’t this one obvious? He totally gets me. Like the time we were watching a baseball game and he tried to explain the intricacies of the sport to me. He totally understood me. We were this close in that moment.

2. He tells you:
OK, so he never technically said anything even remotely close to those three words, “I love you,” but his actions spoke volumes. Like the time he walked up to my house and brought over cookies he and his family had forgotten to give me right after I came home from the hospital that summer. Or the time he spent hours trying to teach me the complicated rules of a stock trading game.

3. He shows you:
Ooooh, this applies to Crush Boy too! He once stayed at my house for two hours uploading some of his favorite songs (and mine) onto my computer. I needed to mellow things out because they were getting too intense, so I did what any normal girl would do. I offered us both a root beer. Diet, of course!

4. He listens to you:
OMG, this is SO true. When he’d talk to me, he had this way of looking at me straight in the eyes. I dare say it unhinged me a bit, which is probably why I turned into a blubbering idiot during every single conversation we’ve ever had.

5. He’s happy around you:
YES! He’s always laughing and smiling around me. And no, I don’t think he’s laughing at me….I hope not. Could he be? Possibly? Whatever. At least I get a huge grin on my face whenever he walks in the room.

6. He compliments you:
Oh, when I was inducted into the National Honor Society my junior year of high school, the tradition was to have members of the society read a little bio about us as we walked across the stage. Who read mine – with passion, I might add? Yup. Crush Boy. You could see the grin on my face from those nose-bleed seats!

7. He takes care of you: