I want someone who maybe doesn’t love me the first time they meet me. I wouldn’t love me the first time I met me. Someone who still doesn’t necessarily feel anything the second or third time we meet, but who loves me when they love me. Maybe when they’ve memorized my order at coffee shops. Or when they’ve memorized exactly how long I can last on the elliptical, and exactly how many calories I burn each time. When they can recite verbatim and fully appreciate the stories I tell, the dramatic pauses I take, the faces I make, the truths I stretch each time I tell them.

Someone who loves me when they know my favorite pair of jeans. Who still loves me when they find out just how many times I wear them between washes. Someone that loves me when they learn that snow makes me sad, rain makes me scared, and sun makes me crazy. That loves me because I’m sad, and scared, and crazy.

They will accept that I’m not watching C-Span or Fox News or MSNBC. That I know more about the Grammy nominees than the presidential candidates.

Someone who waits patiently for me to finish at the dinner table, because often I talk more than I eat. Someone who understands that some nights I’ll finish faster than them – that I won’t talk, I might not even make eye contact, but simply nod and occasionally smile.

Someone who adores me because I can’t tell a ten buck bottle of wine from a $20 glass. Someone who finds it charming that I’d rather have a Mike’s Hard instead of a beer, and who doesn’t think it makes me any less of a person. Someone that finds it hysterical that one makes me quiet, two get me tipsy, and three have me drunk. Someone that loves me when I’m quiet, and tipsy, and drunk.

Someone who won’t see past the fact that I laugh at my own jokes, often before I get to the punch line, but who sees that as a trait that catapults their love for me.

Someone who will never ask me the question “Where were you?” Someone who knows that I think these three words consecutively should be removed from the English language, and who already knew where I was to begin with. A simple, “Missed you last night,” will do. Because they will have actually missed me.

Someone who knows when I need No Strings Attached and when I need (500) Days of Summer, Parks & Rec, or Grey’s Anatomy. One Direction or Coldplay.

They will love me because I always keep a Burt’s Bees in my left pocket. Because a majority of my shirts are stained. Because at least once a month I forget to pull it out of my pocket before doing laundry. They’ll love me because occasionally I’ll throw a big word into a sentence, cross my fingers and pray that I’m using it in the right context. And because most times I’m not.

They are someone who will love me because they remember when they didn’t. When they weren’t intrigued by my order at coffee shops. Long before they were amused by the stories I told and the fact that I occasionally embellished them. When they were repulsed by how often I wore my favorite pair of jeans. When for all they knew, I could have made a fine sommelier. When they scoffed at my limited vocabulary. Back when they crinkled their eyebrows and wondered how somehow all of my shirts were stained.

Someone who reads this and falls in love with every seemingly insignificant aspect and who doesn’t see them as shortcomings, or flaws – both of which I have plenty of that will emerge in due time – but who instead sees them as potential learning experiences. Someone who may finally start to sympathize with Summer, instead of Tom always appearing the victim. Someone who will watch the Grammys with me, even if only until Taylor Swift’s head-banging performance before he can’t take anymore. And when they can’t, we’ll turn on Squawk Box, or ESPN, and I will only exhale forcefully a single time. Then, despite how bloated they say it makes them, they’ll crack open a Mike’s Hard, I’ll crack open a beer, and we may even take a sip before handing over our respective drinks.

And when we turn off the television and hear the pitter-patter on the roof, they’ll hold me because they know that snow makes me sad, rain makes me scared, and sun makes me crazy.