1. Even if you were always extremely self-conscious about your appearance, someone finds you beautiful and desirable, and it isn’t out of pity or desperation.

2. The whole “finding you physically attractive” part is actually the least intimidating aspect of love, when you really get to know someone. It’s the “keeping them interested in what you have to offer as a person” thing that is really hard to master.

3. Sex is a whole different thing when done with someone you love. It’s like you’re having emotional orgasms on top of actual, physical ones.

4. A lot of the things which are really interesting to you, because you are in love, are things that no one else wants to hear you talk about. (Relationship stories are often like dream stories, and your friends are just humoring you.)

5. Some people might not approve of your relationship — for legitimate or petty reasons — but it likely won’t matter. When you are in real love for the first time, your partner can do no wrong in your eyes, and you can do no better.

6. Human beings can stay on the phone with each other for lengths of time which defy the laws of time and space.

7. What you perceive as obsession vs. normal, healthy interest is completely skewed when you are in love.

8. There is no such thing as a “real date” when you are in love with someone — everything you do together, whether or not it was intended to be a romantic moment, can be the most fun and fulfilling thing you’ve ever done. (This is usually the moment where you realize how much money and time you’ve wasted trying to create the perfect “date” ambiance with someone who didn’t interest you.)

9. You don’t know how you come across to other people, and even though it’s hard to imagine someone finding you the perfect human being, that is exactly how someone sees you.

10. You are often too hard on yourself, and hearing someone reaffirm that you don’t need to be so critical and self-deprecating is one of the most comforting things you can experience.

11. Without realizing it, you are capable of becoming extremely dependent on someone else’s approval and affection, to the point where you don’t know if you will still be yourself if they are not in your life supporting you.

12. Being in love is a full-time job, and a lot of other parts of your life are going to have to take a big hit in terms of time commitment in order to accomodate it.

13. The burning love of infatuation doesn’t last very long — and it isn’t really “love” at all, in many ways — but what replaces it is so much more satisfying.

14. Being in love means constantly being torn between feeling like you’ve known this person forever, and you’ve just met them for the first time this morning.

15. No one is ever going to be able to fully relate to your love story, because each one is inherently different. But just because someone doesn’t understand the exact story you’re referencing doesn’t mean that they don’t know what it means to be in love.

16. Even though it feels like it, you are not the first person to truly experience love.

17. “Love” doesn’t necessarily mean that you aren’t going to have fights, or need time away from each other, or even not work out in general. It isn’t an antidote to every poison.

18. The first real fight that you have with the person you love feels equal in badness that falling in love felt in goodness. Like that moment of falling in love, it consumes you entirely and stops you from doing anything else, but in a negative way. It ruins you.

19. Just like after you first fell, you will stabilize again. You will find a normal place, even though just a few days before it felt like your whole world was ending because you were fighting with your partner.

20. But you will still have to say goodbye. And loving them is not going to be enough to override all of the real, unfair problems that have come between you.

21. Even though you loved this person immensely, and have so many good memories with them that seem like they could never make sense when your partner was out of your life, you will forget who the two of you were together. In practice, you will become strangers again. And that’s okay, because you will fall in love again.