let’s say that a close friend’s mother sets you up on a blind date with a guy. and you text a bit for a few days before to kinda get to know him. and youre nervous about the date (you both show up early) and you get your favorite pizza and walk around a big box craft store and look at Halloween decorations (your favorite activity to be certain) and then you sit with him in his car for a few hours and just talk. and it would have been great if it weren’t for those meddling kids (you, thinking about this one particular guy who has kinda always been in your life—roughly 77% of it) so as you make out with this poor guy who keeps telling you that you’re the greatest thing since sliced bread, you’re not into it. On the way home from this date you still can’t put your finger on exactly what the problem is. On paper, the guy checked most of the boxes, and he wasn’t that bad to hang out with. So of course you call Tod. and it hits you, and it’s you clutching you’re steering wheel till your knuckles are white and it’s that scene of Cher in Clueless when she understands that she loves Josh (or basically the same thing in Emma obviously when she is like oh duh i love mr. Knightley) and it’s embarrassing because shouldn’t you have always known? well why would you? when your brain was full up with nonsense from Scorpio and Taurus who both had you on a line and liked it more than they would ever like you when you always had him.
Mostly, you think it’s because he always let you be yourself. you never had to play cool girl or hot girl or any other type of girl in front of him because he just liked the youness about you. the other two didn’t necessarily dislike that about you, but they still would have never let you really be free, like they wouldnt have grabbed your water bottle in the middle of sex because you said you were thirsty or they wouldn’t laugh at your imitation sexy voice talking about legos and dnd. At least not in the way the he does. oh how crazy you feel to notate him in italics when everyone else gets some kind of realish name. there just isn’t one thing about him that you could label him as. He has always known you as yourself. and he has never thought you were too much.
and there is no weirdness when you finally tell him that you like him. it’s the monday after the date (a wednesday) and the whole weekend it’s all you can think about. you’re shocked that you haven’t talked yourself out of telling him. and on sunday night, after your friends leave the freak out sets in. monday morning you tell all your coworkers and your friend gives you a tarot reading and it will go good. and you dont have to keep imagining going into his room barefoot and leaving immediately after and slipping into your weird as flip flops as you flee. when you get to his place you pet the dog (a very cutie pants guy) and steel yourself for what you must do. you gossip and make a bad segue into having a crush on him and you hide your face with your hands (like that will stop him from seeing you) and your heart is in your stomach and he says he’s into you too and he has been for a while and you make a date (obviously Red Robin) then you leave. mostly because you’re freaking out and now everything is different but still the same and it’s scary and exciting and all you have ever really wanted. it could be said that a part of you knew this would happen. when you first got back into constant contact during the pandemic. and you had done a tarot reading that had the six of cups (and every other reading you did about him had the card, up to the one your friend gave you before you told him) and of course it had that because you guys are kind of that, young and older together.
you go to the same big box store that you went to with your date with your mom and brother and you dont really remember what you talked about because you were feeling really weird. it’s all you can talk about to anyone who will listen the next few days, except you can’t bring yourself to text him because you feel like it’ll be too much or you’ll seem too clingy or something. but finally it’s the next monday and he’s coming to get you from your place to take you on a real date and now everything is real and you skipped work and did homework because you were freaking out and couldn’t get anything done anywhere but home. and so he arrives, and he’s brought you flowers, and it takes your breath away a little bit because how has this happened and when did things get good like this? you’re both so nervous that you don’t finish your dinner and he doesn’t finish his dessert. and you talk to him in his car in the parking lot, but the teenager working at the yogurt place can see you guys (you think, but probably you just couldnt sit there with moving anymore) and so he starts to drive you home. and you tell him all this stuff that’s been rattling around in your head bout how you’re so freaked and you care about him so much that you can’t stand the thought that you could hurt him and you’ve never managed to date anybody long term and you just don’t have a lot of experience with a lot of things and you don’t want him to be disappointed in you and basically there’s a moment where he grabs your hand. and you stop. and it’s just that moment. with the two of you in his car, the radio silent, and your hand in his. and that’s the moment that you know you love him.
oh god, but how can you say that you love him? how do you know? you dont know anything really. but in that moment, you feel everything and you kind of understand. and then yall makeout in your driveway lmao. and you pick up two friends to tell them about the date went and to tell them that he told you he was “serious about you” and that he cares about you a lot and all of these things that made you shriek in your car when you thought about it. because how were you so lucky? and still you think that maybe something can go wrong or something will stop this from being great, but the next day when it’s still real, and the day after that, and the day after that, you get it.
there really isn’t any need for advice because everything seems to be happening the way that it should be. and you’re grateful.
hypothetically speaking 