How Will I Know?

In the 80s, Whitney Houston asked us this ponderous question: How will I know if he really loves me? (I say a prayer with ev-ery heart-beat. I fall in love whenever we meee-eeet. I'm askin you, 'cause you know about these things. Love. It.) Here's how you know, Whitney, you ask him. I know. Weird, huh? I just learned that one in the past year. It totally works.

But how do you know if you really love him? Or like him? Or maybe wanna date him? A friend of mine who has been seeing this guy for a couple weeks now is mulling over this very question: How will she know if she really likes him?

I can get all existential (or something--confession, I don't think I know what existential means), and say something like: Do we ever really know anything? But that's kinda silly. I know many things for certain, such as, I don't like eggs, Britney Spears is awesome, tequila makes me crazy, and having a pillow-top mattress has significantly improved my life.

Because I was single for a whole seven months this year, I know a thing or two about knowing. Maybe. I know that if you have to ask yourself, How will I know? or Do I really like this person?, you probably have your answer. If you've been dating a guy and you're not quite sure how you feel about him or the situation, you're probably not that into him (another great question--how do you know if he's just not that into you? Um because you had to ask.) But I digress.

For me, I know right away whether or not I like someone. Of course that doesn't mean I haven't done my fair share of bargaining, contemplating, and convincing myself to feel something for a guy when I really wanted to like him but didn't. I get annoyed with girls who complain about how they want a boyfriend, attracted more to the idea of having one without an actual live man in mind, but I understand wanting to be love--both wanting to love someone and have someone love you back. There are many things in this world that are amazing: cupcakes, iPhones, adrenaline, rainbows, and really, really good steak, to name a few. But I have yet to see poetry about steak.

Love is a whole other beast. In Whitney's song, the back-up singers have some advice for her, as she asks how she will know. They say, "Don't trust a feeling--love can be deceiving." I'm not sure I agree with that. (Unless of course that feeling is actually just an unfounded desire to have sex with someone because that never works out well.) Still, I don't think love--the real kind--is deceiving. I think love makes people crazy and happy and miserable at times, but it doesn't lie. You either love someone or you don't. The complicated part is what happens next...