It’s an age-old question that’s incredibly difficult to answer: how do you know when you’ve found ‘the one’? While the criteria varies by person, it’s important to have a solid foundation built on comfort and trust. If you can do these ten things around your guy, he’s definitely a keeper — and might even be ‘the one’ you’ve been looking for all this time.
- Be Comfortably Makeup-Free We all want to look our best, but I’ll be totally honest: wearing makeup is a pain in the ass sometimes. Some days you just want to go au natural, but it can be a little harder to go fresh-faced early on in a relationship, especially since you want to look beautiful for your partner. If you’re going sans makeup more often than not around him, you’ve hit a milestone where you don’t need to go all-out around him to feel beautiful.
- Dress Down When You’re Hanging Out When he takes you out, you dress to impress. You’ve all but perfected the art of making his jaw drop when he sees you. But that pressure to knock him dead isn’t there when you’re having a casual night in. From pajamas to an oversized tee and shorts, comfort is your priority. Most importantly, your guy makes it a point to tell you that you look just as beautiful dressed down as you do on date nights.
- Talk To Him With No Filter Remember early on in your relationship when you were careful about making potentially controversial statements? It wasn’t that you were scared to speak your mind; you just didn’t want to offend him or step on his toes. He did it too, always asking your opinion on a topic before he shared his own. It’s a safe bet that those days are gone if you tell him what you think, unfiltered and honestly. It shows that you trust him enough to tell him exactly how you feel and he respects you for it.
- Call Or Text Him At Any Time It’s three in the morning on a weekday. He’s probably sleeping, and you should be too, but there’s too much on your mind. You grab your phone and shoot him a quick text, letting him know that you’re having a rough time. He texts you back almost immediately to see if you’re okay. It’s a risky move early on in a relationship, but you’ve gotten so close that you know he’s there for you whenever you need him.
- Laugh At Everything Together The two of you laugh. A lot. It doesn’t matter if it’s something that’s supposed to be funny or something ironically so. Your combined sense of humor is so dynamic that it’s only a matter of time before you’re both cackling, turning red, and wiping tears from your eyes. Laughter and humor are such an important part of a relationship, and once you really connect on that level, it’s safe to say this is a relationship that’s built to last.
- Embrace Your Appetite Around Him Sometimes you’re hungry. Really hungry. You do your best to watch what you eat, but when the craving for a huge burger with a side of crispy fries hits you, it’s only a matter of time before you’re devouring it all. At one point, you couldn’t imagine eating like that in front of your guy; you’re not exactly shy when it comes to food you love, so you were kind of worried about what he’d think. Now? If you’re not taking big bites of the food you love around him, he’ll ask you what’s wrong.
- Enjoy Each Other In Silence You talk to him about everything that comes to mind, but sometimes, you just love being around him without saying a word. Seriously, what’s better than cuddling while you lie back and watch a movie or listen to music? Even ambient noise is soothing when you’re next to each other. At this stage of the game, you don’t need to fill the silence with empty conversation — you just need each other.
- Fill Him In On Womanly Issues Periods. Sanitary napkins. Tampons. Cramps. Bloating. It’s a normal, albeit sometimes painful, part of womanhood that some guys just can’t deal with. Whether it grosses them out or just makes them nervous, it takes a special kind of man to handle the ebb and flow (pun intended) of a woman’s menstrual cycle. Your guy is that guy. Not only does he ask how you’re doing, but he also wants to know if he can get you anything to make it better. If that doesn’t make him a keeper, I don’t know what will.
- Share Closely Guarded Secrets Maybe it’s something lighter, like breaking a family heirloom when you were a kid and hiding the evidence. Perhaps it’s darker, where grief from losing a loved one prompted you to engage in self-destructive behavior. Either way, it takes an incredible amount of trust to tell someone about things that make you feel deeply ashamed or embarrassed. You’ve told your partner things you’ve only shared with a few people — or maybe none. You know there’s no judgment coming your way from him — just love, support, and understanding.
- Tell Him You Love Him It may not make sense to everyone, but it’s often easier to show someone you love them rather than tell them. When it comes to relationships, it’s the most vulnerable thing you could tell someone, second only to proposing to a partner (or being proposed to). You might have had to work up to it the very first time, or maybe it was a response to him saying it first. Either way, it’s a frequently used expression in your relationship now: a sign that you value each other dearly and play a vital role in each other’s lives.
