A Few Things You Do When Somebody Loves You

I’d be lying if I said it didn’t change the way you go about some things.

You begin to change your sheets much more often than you used to. There was a time not too long ago when you didn’t mind tossing and turning and often sweating profusely in your own filth atop a fitted sheet that has seen better days and been on your bed for much longer than a fortnight. But you’re not gonna invite someone you love into your bed if the bedding isn’t fresh. It’s just disrespectful on some level. A part of you even considers adopting the use of a top sheet for the first time since you started making your own bed decades ago, but that might be a bridge too far. Love can do some things to you, but you’ve got to keep your head, you know?

You start to stock things in your apartment that previously had no business being there. Like black licorice. Because although you despise it on the same level as banana-flavored Runts, she loves it. Also, she loves banana-flavored runts. Both of these things disturb you, but being in love sometimes means your own taste isn’t the only taste that matters anymore. At least not all the time.

You pay more attention to your personal grooming. You don’t want to mail it in. The least you can do is be presentable (most or at least some of the time) when you’re spending time with somebody who loves you. So you purchase a device made specifically for nick-free pubic hair trimming. And spring a little bit extra for the package from a brand that is, no joke, called Manscaped, that includes a nose hair trimmer along with special wipes and a bottle of toner designed to keep your dick and balls and surrounding area somewhat fresh.

You stop hiding your stuffed animals and instead ask her to place them on the bed and tuck them in on mornings when you leave early, before she gets out of bed. This means also that you’ve begun letting another person spend time in your apartment alone, but that you are unafraid of how they’d react to anything they might unwittingly come across while they get ready for the day in your sacred domain. You become enamored with how much fun it is to be with someone from whom you do not feel the need to hide anything.

You, unbidden, make a somewhat detailed plan for the weekend for goddamn once. One that occasionally even includes leaving your apartment.

You find reasons to bring them up in casual conversation with whomever whenever, even if you’re grasping for a relevant point in which to do so. And this often leads to you gushing profusely about them, to the point that you wonder, in a positive way, just what in the hell has happened to you.

You find yourself Googling “easy vegetarian recipes” and even consider doing some trial runs concocting them on your own so that someday you can make one for her and not come off as a complete fool who has absolutely no business being in a kitchen, mostly for your own safety and the safety of others.

You stop doing exactly whatever you want when you want all the time. Not in all things, but specifically when it comes to your solo late-night TV-watching regimen. You hold off on certain new episodes or film releases because they’re something you’ve pledged to watch together. And if you succumb to watching something when they’re absent, you feel a great deal of shame.

You start to become more fully aware of what it’s like to be alone when they’re not around, because finally there’s someone you’d rather regularly be around than being by yourself for the vast majority of the time. And you sincerely look forward to the next time you’re going to see them.