Things You Stop Caring About After You’ve Fallen In Love
By Karen Noble
I bet you thought, opening this post, that it’d be like a nothing-new Cosmo article. That I’d say that when you fall in love, you stop shaving your legs or you wear baggier, less attractive clothing, or you gain weight or you lounge around at home with Thai food instead of going to bars. That’s the societal consensus. After you’ve fallen in love, you’re supposed to let yourself go, right? Relax. Give up. Stop trying.
But if you’re truly in love, why would you want to? Or rather, let’s say you already don’t shave your legs and SOMEHOW (I know, patriarchy, I know it’s hard, keep with me) you found love anyway. Or let’s say your decision to dress a certain way has nothing to do with attracting a mate (PATRIARCHY’S HEAD EXPLODES) and once you’ve got a mate, you’re not really planning on changing your fashion sense. Or let’s say you were already chubby and you’re deeply in love with your partner.
Well then, what are the benefits of being in love? What are the things you can truly stop caring about? What little worries suddenly go poof? What nagging anxieties of singledom can be shed?
You have someone.
That’s pretty much it. I know it’s not sexy or complicated or cool, but that’s the beauty of love. You can stop caring about having someone, because you have someone. If you like being alone, you can take some alone time, but then when you resurface, someone will be there.
Don’t take that for granted. For a lot of people, that is the chief thing they care about. They worry about being alone. They wallow in sadness in their apartments. They feel lonely with no one to reach out to. They have friends but they know it’s not the same as having one person who is theirs and only theirs. So when you fall in love, you get to stop caring about who cares about you. You have that privilege. Because someone does. They definitely do and they show you every day.
You also get to stop caring about the hot guy at the bar because you know he’d never live up to the amazing person you have at home. You stop caring about staying out at the party in case someone cute shows up because your someone cute is already going home with you. You stop wondering what you’re going to do all weekend (note: sit on the computer in your pajamas in a pile of Dorito dust) because if you’ve got someone to hang out with. (Note: if, as a couple, you want to sit on the computer in pajamas covered in Dorito dust, you are the greatest couple ever and I love you.)
You have someone.
You have someone to welcome you home and to send you flowers and to cuddle with at night. You have someone to ask you how the big meeting went and to have sex with you and to make dinner with. You have someone to bitch to and to show up late to that party with. You have someone who you take care of and who takes care of you.
The point is, after you fall in love, your cares don’t magically go away. You don’t automatically become a different person, and you don’t have to. Instead of subtracting, think of it as adding. You are adding someone who cares about you to your life. You don’t give up, you just get to try WITH someone.
You have someone.
So mostly you just get to stop caring about whether or not you do.