I Want An Honest Kind Of Love

Imagine you and me, me and you together on a random weekend morning when we’re splitting the paper and I’m being pretentious and trying to complete the crossword, and you ask me about my opinion on [Insert Global Event Here]. And if it’s a week when I was slammed at work, or there was a marathon of my favorite reality show on, I’ll probably ask what you mean, and you’ll remind me that it’s important to know what’s going on in the world, and to watch the news and to read the papers and develop an opinion on the world like an adult would.

I want you to help me grow.

I want you to be honest with me when I’ve been rude to my mother who doesn’t deserve my attitude, and I want you to tell me when you’re angry that my hair clogs the shower drain. I want you to be honest that you’re not all that fond of my cat and that you have mild allergies, and I want to be honest with you and tell you she’s non-negotiable. I want you to honestly forgive my stubbornness, and not hold it against me like a slow fuse.

I want you to tell me when I’m being a dick, and I want to know you’re coming from a good place when you say it. I want to tell you that you’ve hurt my feelings, but I want you to know I won’t seek my revenge later. I want you to know it will be hard for me to take it in stride, but I honestly promise to try.

This will be our love: When I tell you on the first date that I’m a vegetarian, you’ll tell me how you can’t live without visiting a steakhouse at least once a month. When you head to the bar to watch a game, I’ll go and I’ll cheer for your team, but you’ll know I’m just 70% there for the guacamole. Okay, 75%. But you already knew that before I was honest about it.

I promise not to tell you that I’m fine when I’m not fine, if you promise the same. I promise to admit to eating the last of the Chinese leftovers if you vow to tell me when you actually like that really cheesy pop song. You’ll tag me in your posts on FourSquare and I’ll upload photos of you on Instagram and we’ll be “in a relationship” on Facebook because we honestly want to share our love with the world. I want you to tell me when my guy friend makes you feel uncomfortable, and I will honestly tell you you have nothing to worry about.

Because you don’t. Honestly.

I want to be honest with the butterflies in my stomach, and I want to acknowledge the flip flop of my soul when you look at me. I want to be honest with myself when I realize that I like you, and I want to tell you that I love you when I know that I do. Not because the requisite number of days have passed, or because you’ve said it first, but because that is how I honestly feel. I want you to be honest about the fact that finding something rare and good and real scares you and makes you question what it is that we’re doing. I want to be honest about how much it scares me, too.

To have an honest love is to know the flaws inside and out, to be aware that nobody is perfect, and that the person on the other side of you is probably in contention for least perfect person of all. To know their little quirks and curves, to know they might have told a white lie to somebody else in your presence and to have known it was a lie the minute it slipped their lips. To know that nobody is always honest all the time–sure, we ought to be and we want to be, but for the sake of being polite and kind and conscientious, are we always? But an honest kind of love is a promise that no matter what, you will be honest all the time with this one person. Above everyone else, you will have chosen to be unfailingly honest with me.

And when you say I look nice, I want to say thank you, and I want us both to know the other means it from the bottom of our hearts.