When did you know you were in love?
Posted By Lonesome Loser on April 14, 2009
*This is another Discussion Question, meant for readers to respond to and talk about. Please offer comments…
Was there a moment where you crossed the line, emotionally, from “before” to “after?” Was it more of a gradual awareness? Was it love at first sight? Was it something you ignored or fought against for a while, or something you welcomed?
For me, there was a definite “before” and “after” moment, although even in the “after” I wasn’t really aware of being in love. I fell in love, then kind of denied it or ignored it, then finally admitted it sometime later. At that point, I was able to look back and clearly see the moment I fell in love. Funny, for me there was both a “point of being in love” and a “point of recognition of the love”, and they were not the same point!
What have your experiences been?
My experience is very similar to yours. I can point to a period of a few weeks during which I fell in love with her, and can even narrow it down to a single week when I went over the edge, so to speak.
I didn’t understand what was happening to me at the time, and I can also tell you, within a week or so, when I actually admitted to myself that I was in love. (That happened several months later.)
That’s it, all right. At first, I was aware that I was having a strong emotional reaction to her. But I wouldn’t let myself recognize those feelings for what they were. I was in denial.
Months later, when events brought the two of us together again, I felt those emotions again — and I could no longer deny what was happening to me.
(I think I must have inadvertantly deleted my original comment. Here’s basically what I said.)
Yeah, it’s funny how that stuff is just unconscious and unconscious and unconscious and then suddenly it’s just there, burst into full consciousness. I can pretty much narrow it down to a week or so where I really went “over the edge,” although I had been pulled by love for weeks before then. Although even after I fell in love more completely or heavily, I did not recognize it as such for several more weeks.
I do not know the exact moment; it seems the revelation occurred over several weeks. Although I do know that transferring to my new job and her news of deployment were the events that triggered it (interestingly enough, the transfer and the news came within weeks of each other). As Lonesome Loser stated, it wasn’t there, we had become close friends in a very short time and that’s all it was. Then suddenly, the suffocation, the aching, the inability to focus, the overwhelming need to hear her voice, to be near her and the relentless preoccupation with everything that is her.
I’ve no idea what the trigger was nor do I have anything but a window of time when this might have changed so drastically. I feel like I must’ve gone into some sort of fugue.
Hi Adaptation,
Well, I believe I know what you mean. It can sort of sneak up on you. Only looking back later do you realize you’ve somehow fallen in love, without being aware of it, certainly without being in control of it. I didn’t realize it until after the fact, then my time frame and triggering event(s) became more clear to me.
I would welcome that! Right now I can only guess somewhere between 4 and 6 weeks maybe? But who knows, it could have been longer ago then that.
I do know one thing. Right now I love her with every ounce of my being. With such intense feelings, one would think I could pinpoint it. Not a clue.
I think there is no defining moment when you wake up and realize you are in love.I think for me it was a culmination of a lot of events.
I remember the first time I saw him I could not help but notice his eyes.
Small things started to matter. What no one tells you is that this hurts worse than a bad relationship.You have all these emotions bottled up inside you and nowhere to go with them. Just hurts. period.
The moment I knew I loved him was when he told me he loved me. I was floored, heart pounding, scared to death but over the moon. I thought, yes, I do love him. But now I’m not sure even what he meant, if he meant anything, if he really did love me or love me as a friend, or just was toying with me. This has been a cruel run for me. I can’t get over him. I love him and it’s been about 20 months and I can’t wish it away.
For me it was love at first sight. I just suddenly felt as if I had known the person for a lifetime. And, unlike a crush I might have had in the past, I really suddenly cared for him and his welfare.
I took me a while to realise that it really was love. I didn’t want tot come across as frivolous or airy fairy.
Hi Lonesome Loser,
First of all, thank you for this website and your blog.
I do remember the time when I realized I was in love with him. It wasn’t gradual for me. It suddenly hit me one day that I was missing him, and have not forgotten him for 13 years now. I’ve never told him how I felt, didn’t think it was necessary. I don’t know what he feels about me, too scared to know.
Looking forward to more posts from you.
14years
(the email I’ve submitted is fake)
I realised I was in love over the span of about 2-3 days. I know it can seem quickk to some, but let me explain.
His name is Nick Boggs. I go to school with him. He is the best freind of my best freind’s ex-boyfreind (that’s a mouthful). Super hot,6-foot tall swimmer guy. Jet-black hair, likes to wear blue-jeans and leather. That’s kind of my type.
I have had alot going on right now. My brother is homeless, and he has been my world for years. My body finally had enough of holding back tears, and unleashed a complete sobfest one fateful Wendsday afternoon.
So wallowing in my personal corner of an empty classroom, looking my worst, who would walk in but him? My crush seince the start of the year. Expecting him to leave as soon as he saw someone in there, I turned my head away. But before I could turn it back, he was by my side. He held me and told me everything was going to be okay.
You would think that would be the climax of my story, right? That was just when I fell in deep,deep,like with Nick. Love was later, when I heard he had a girlfreind. I realized I loved him when I became completly depressive afterwards. I knew I couldn’t get that worked up about that kind of thing unless I was in love. I know the circumstances might not be the same with some, but specific events caused me to realize my case of unrequited love.
Sierra Kennedy
(sorry about the book-length response, I get carried away when I talk about him)
FROM THE MOMENT WE SAW ONE ANOTHER…ALTHOUGH WHEN HE TOOK MY HAND AND BRUSHED THE HAIR FROM MY FACE i WAS PUTTY ANDT HERE WAS NO QUESTION….NOW i WONDER IF HE KNEW AND IS DENYING HOW HE FEELS..ANY THOUGHT BY ANYONE?.
Hes been my best friend for the last 5 years. We have both had significant others in our lives while being friends and I often wonder what would happen if we both wound up being single at the same time…
When we first met I put him in the “friend category” because I was only 17 and I new if we dated we would wind up breaking up, and I could not imagine losing him. However at Christmas we spent a night drinking wine and celebrating the holiday and somehow in that instant he lit a fire inside me. There had always been something between us, and we both love each other a great deal, but now I realize I am dangerously close to falling in love with him.
Heres the catch, hes not single, I live in another city for school, and hes my best friend…
I do believe I shall be cursed with unrequited love.
I realized I was in love with her when I wrote down how I enjoyed being around her because of her sense of humor, her kindness and willingness to help others. I always try to get people laughing and I first noticed that she was funnier than me most of the time. Once I wrote a few thoughts down I found that I couldn’t stop. I started a journal about my feelings and withing 3 days I had written over 12 pages! I am in the middle of it right now and my mind is just consumed with this topic.
Oh yeah. Though the feelings had been building for months, there was one moment in time when it hit like a force majeure.
I had been working very closely with my supervisor all day on a problem with a big client. Sheer torture. At the end of the day I was sitting across from her as she put the phone down. She kept her head down, rolled her eyes up and locked them on mine.
BANG! Gone. Devastated. Slurred “thanks for the help” and somehow got back to my desk in spite of shaking knees, dizziness and blurred vision. Took me a long time to finish my paperwork that day, I ended up hanging around for quite awhile…
Lyricist Bernie Taupin, from Elton John’s song “The One” summed it up superbly:
In the instant that you love someone
In the second that the hammer hits
Reality crawls up your spine
And the pieces finally fit
I knew I was in love when someone was asking an assortment of random questions that I had to answer right away. When one of the questions was “are you in love with anyone?” I immediately thought of him even before the sentence finished.
Hit me like a brick wall.
He doesn’t know and I doubt he ever will. However, I still think about him on the daily and care about him more than he will ever imagine (and more than I can understand). I tried telling him that I had feelings for him, but he completely ignored my confession. The craziest thing? I have only met him a couple times and talked to him maybe about 5-6 times.
I “fell” in love with him 17 years ago, after being “happily” married for 13 years. I’d worked with him for weeks before it hit me, but I can indeed remember the day it “happened” – more a realisation that he was the guy I had always dreamt would be “the one”. I said nothing for 12 long years, until he made a move at last…or so I thought. He got tender one evening, but admitted later that his feelings for me hadn’t changed: he liked me but didn’t share the “love” I have for him. Just two people caught in the difficulties of life… We’re still best of friends and try to be as honest as possible about of respective feelings. Maybe I’m luckier than I think: if he had returned my love, we might not be seeing one another any more! Who knows…
Oh, this one is so easy. An absolute line of demarcation. Feelings had been building for six months. One day she had her head down, and as I was looking at her, she kept it down but rolled her eyes up at me. After my eyes locked with hers for a couple of seconds, it hit, and it hit hard. Bernie Taupin’s lyrics in Elton John’s The One are beyond perfect:
In the instant that you love someone
In the second that the hammer hits
Reality crawls up your spine
And the pieces finally fit
I always thought she was very pretty. Then she said something in a certain way that made me lose my mind. Even made me leave the place…
Well for me while I probably love them, I have too odd a past with the word to be accepting of it yet, though considering I’m the one being limerenced over, they have in the past told me they loved me and talked about their devotion for me, though they deny such things regularly and refuse to talk about it again
I think I realized that I was in love when, 10 years later, I still can’t stop thinking about her or comparing every other girl to her. We dated briefly in high school, but the timing was just not right, and we decided to split after I graduated and moved away to college.We have talked only a few times since then, but I haven’t been able to tell her I still care since the break up. Love sucks sometimes, but it has become my new motivation… to be the best I can be so that one day I’ll be good enough for her.