This Is How You’ll Know You’ve Finally Met A Guy Who’s Worth It

Whether we care to admit it or not, odds are, most of us have spent some time searching for “The One” — or at least imagining what it would be like to meet him. When you finally do, it exceeds your wildest hopes and expectations. Here are 13 things that happen when you finally meet an amazing guy:

1. He takes an active role in pushing the relationship forward. You’ve heard it so many times that it almost feels like a cliche now: if a guy likes you, he’s going to do everything in his power to make it work with you. It’s not until you meet the right person, you realize how true that statement actually is. When someone’s trying — genuinely trying — to be with you, it makes you reflect back on the laundry list of douchebags you thought were into you. Suddenly, it’s clearer than ever that you were lying to yourself all that time, trying to force hookups to become something they weren’t meant to be.
2. You feel totally comfortable with him. As in, you can skip that whole “I woke up like this” stage and jump directly to you lounging around in sweatpants and wearing zero makeup in his presence. It also means that you’re relaxed around him in other ways. You don’t have to work too hard at conversation or feel like you’re putting on airs. Ah, what a relief.
3. You’re never left waiting around for his text replies. He always replies to your text when he gets a spare second and he’d never purposely leave you hanging. When he does take a little longer than normal, you don’t freak out because you trust him. Even if you’re more of a texter and he’s not as attentive to his phone, you don’t get wound up about it. You’re not losing sleep over why he’s not texting you back because you know he has an insanely busy day at work. When he has a moment, he’ll shoot you an emoji and you’re fine with that.
4. You want to hang out with him almost constantly. After a solid weekend of Chinese takeout and Netflix, you think you’d be itching for some time to yourself, but as soon as you get back to your place Sunday night, you miss your S.O. The best part is that he feels the exact same way. You still take the time to maintain your life outside of your relationship, but it’s nice knowing you’re on his mind as much as he’s on yours.
5. Your BFFs comment regularly on how good you are together. The signs are all there: you’re not spending girls’ night wondering why he opened your Snap but didn’t respond, you haven’t checked Tinder in days, and you just have that happy, honeymoon glow about you. They notice what a healthy relationship you’re in and they comment on it pretty much every time they see you.
6. You don’t feel the crushing pressure to be “perfect.” You’re perfectly happy with yourself not just physically but emotionally too. You don’t have to be so agreeable all the time or know everything about indie horror movies to impress him. You can be flawed and still be attractive — something you’ve realized more and more now that you’ve met your boyfriend.
7. Since you’re not feeling so pressured, you can really, truly be yourself. Knowing you don’t have to censor yourself or constantly play the role of the perfect girlfriend is freeing, to say the least. With him, you can say what you want without fear of judgment. He gets you and he likes you just as you are.
8. You never stop smiling when you’re with him. Whether you’re hanging at home or going on an impromptu road trip, you two are always having a good time together. When you’ve found a guy that you can have fun running errands with, you know you’ve got a catch.
9. You share core beliefs. This can mean pretty much anything; similar political viewpoints, shared hobbies, etc. It basically means that you’re both passionate about similar things and you love to have engaging conversations about those topics. These similarities are what truly last after the honeymoon glow has faded away.
10. You challenge each other in all the best ways. Liking similar things doesn’t mean you should be clones of each other. Having some differing opinions is good, as long as they’re not things that will tear you two apart. It’s even better when you can challenge each other on those converse opinions — without offending each other, of course.
11. He regularly encourages you to express your thoughts, feelings, and opinions. So often in a relationship, even a totally healthy one, you feel like you can’t share something with your partner. It could be an honest opinion or something he said that really hurt your feelings and you’ll clam up because you don’t want to start anything or sound like a “bitch.” Not with this guy. With him, you know you can open up about anything that’s on your mind and that’s extremely liberating.
12. Everything with him feels effortless. Every relationship requires some degree of work, but in the right relationship, there should be a certain amount of effortlessness between the two of you. That’s not to say you won’t have things to work through from time to time, but even that work will just feel easy and right when they’re meant to be. It’s what you’ve been waiting for all along.