The first step in knowing if someone is right for you is accepting that no relationship is ever going to be picture perfect. No relationship is 100% perfect all the time or even most of the time, and you may have little doubts that pop up every now and again. But you always suppress them because you are that much in love. Sure, everyone seems perfect at the very beginning, but we all have our flaws, our “South Fork Inn” if you catch the Revenge reference. And that’s when you know someone is right for you, because despite whatever flaws they have, however imperfect they are, you love them all the more. You love them through their imperfections.

When you go on a date with someone new, or even when you’ve been in a relationship with them for a while, there are 10,000 little things that signal you whether or not a person is right for you. You don’t have to love every thing about them, but you have to latch on to something. Do you like the way they smile? How’s their taste in music? Do they excite you? Are you attracted to them even when they are doing the silliest, unsexiest of things? I dated a guy who was so sexy when he was in the kitchen cooking in his underwear with his hair all the way down, not even knowing he was being sexy to me. I snuck glances at him, thinking to myself, “Wow. I get to have that.” If you can look at your significant other after 3 weeks, 3 years or 30 years and still think, “Dang,” you know that person is right for you.

You know they’re right for you because when you look at them you smile all over. You smell them on your clothes mid-day and you get excited about seeing them again later on. You know they’re right for you because your differences make you stronger.

You know they’re right for you because they don’t make you feel judged. You can be your fullest self and experiment and try new things and they still think you’re beautiful. They think you’re beautiful when you’re sleeping and when you have snot pouring out of your nostrils. They’re right for you because they care, they show you they care, even if they aren’t the most vocal about it or say “I love you” all the time. Deep down you know they care, even when things are rough.

You can’t imagine your life without them, without their family, without sharing a bed, without hearing their news and sharing yours, without doing “your” thing.

You know someone is right for you if you break up with them and know that that’s never the end. You know what I mean. Sometimes when we break up with someone we can’t wait to get the hell out of there, to move on to other pastures, to date other people, to forget how bad that toxic relationship. Other times you split amicably, even if you remain light friends and communicate with one another from time to time.

And then there are people we date that we never fully break away from, even when we break up. We date them, we hook up with them when they come back to town, they date other people, we date other people yet we still talk to them and communicate because we know that what we both have is special and unforgettable. For some reason, though, you can’t be together, not right now. Still, there’s that thing that keeps bringing you together, and whatever it is, that’s how you know they’re right.