#loveltters

Whether you are reading this before you meet me, or stumble upon it after, I want you to know a few things.

The reason I am writing this today is because I can’t stop thinking about you, and I can’t stop myself from imagining how happy we will be. Let this letter be a promise to you that I will do my best to be the man I want to be for you.

I may not yet know all of the difficulties that come with a lifetime commitment, but I have enough relationship experience to know what I want and how I picture my life with the person I will commit to: you.

Those around me are a continuous source of education and inspiration on how I want our relationship to be. So here and today, I vow to try my best to do the following:

I promise to do my best to make you beam daily, so count on many surprises. Your smile will be my priority. I get weak knees when anybody smiles, so just imagine the effort I will make to be the source of yours.

I promise I will always look at you with the same adoration as I did the moment I realized I loved you.

I promise to try to ignite the same sparkle in your eyes I see when you’re surprised, inspired, motivated or when you are about to lean in to kiss me.

I promise to hold your hand when we’re 80 years old with the same liveliness that I did when I crossed that line to hold yours for the first time. I vow never to let the excitement of dating me die down; I will surprise you with the location, the reason or the activity itself.

I promise to keep you guessing where we’re going next.  I promise to do my best always to interest you. I will keep reinventing myself, gaining new hobbies, new knowledge and new interests to keep you -- and myself -- entertained.

I promise to have new stories to share with you, and maybe I’ll retell the best ones again if you insist. Our friendship will continue to grow over the years.

I vow to challenge you to challenge yourself for the better; to make you think differently. I promise to try to feed off of your illuminating energy that will inspire me to do the same with myself. I will do my best to ensure that being bored never crosses your mind.

Even in grief and darkness, I promise to show you the different shades of the dark, and to help you find the tiny rays of light that are always there if you seek them. After all, there’s always worse than worst and better than best; everything is relative.

I promise to kiss you throughout our life together, with the same passion I had the first time I felt my lips on yours. When we kiss, I want it to slow down time -- just you and me engulfed in our feelings.

I promise to play the games you like to play.

I promise to do my best to remain physically attractive for you, and I will do my best to be healthy in order to keep up with our children and grandchildren; someone has got to teach them Muay Thai kickboxing. I’ll train you, too; I want you to know how to fight and defend yourself, just don’t use it against me.

I promise to help you to be healthy, both physically and mentally. I will cook and clean for us. Expect the best breakfast: traditional Armenian tomato and pepper omelets, followed by fruit salad with… well, I can’t give all the secrets out.

I promise to strive to be a role model for our children. I want both you and them to see me as a source of motivation. I want to inspire them in the same way that my father inspires me.

I promise to do my best to love your family as you love them and to be by their side as much as I am by yours.

I promise to always listen to you when you simply just want to be heard; when you want someone to vent to about something or when you want advice.

I will listen to you especially when you don’t feel comfortable sharing your thoughts with anybody else, and to the things you try to tell me when you’re not even speaking. I promise to always listen.

During our life together, I promise to make sure that you feel as though you are the center of the household -- I know you will be -- and I will always try to show my appreciation for you because of that. Being the man of the house is nothing without a woman.

I promise never to let my guard down in taking care of us. I know you won’t be one to be satisfied with the bare minimum.

I promise to do everything that I can for you without taking away from your independence physically, intellectually or emotionally.

I promise to create family traditions and to make sure that your legacy lives forever through our children.

I promise to encapsulate the moment when I realize that I am in the most magnetic, amorous and erotic love with you, not to let that feeling dissipate to the best of my ability and to relive it with you constantly, always.

Dear You,

11:13 PM on my clock is suggesting that I should go to bed. Tomorrow is a long day (like always). But little does my clock know that I can barely sleep. There are a thousand thoughts racing across my head and nine hundred are about you.  And at least five hundred of them are big fat questions that only you have the answers to.  

What are you doing? Are you still awake? Do you think of me like I think of you (at odd hours and all the time), do you get distracted by me when I am I am not even a part of the conversation you are having with your best friends? Do you ever smile silly thinking of how I stumbled upon a simple question you asked me? Or is there another person who takes the same position in your heart as you do in mine? Have you ever made a mental map of places we could go to together? Do you think we will ever get married (to each other)?

Sigh. I have been carrying these questions with me for quite some time now. But, the one question that scares me the most? Will you love me back, if I tell you how much I love you?

Yes, if you haven't noticed it yet, let me be loud and clear right here, right now through this letter-I am in love with you. And I want to be with you. 

Why? Well, I don't know how to put this.

It was not love at first sight, and nor did I have hots for you right from the start. It was nothing like the movies portray, there were no sparks and no violins in the background. There never was that special defining eye contact moment either. Yet, there was something about you that always struck me like a puzzle- intimidating but extremely attractive. Even when I knew you wouldn't be remotely interested in me, even when I knew we would never be remotely involved, even when I didn't intend to, I kept looking for reasons to get to know you. I kept looking for reasons to be around you.

You know what they say about your heart, it already knows what you want even when you have no clue. Perhaps, my heart wanted you right from the start. Perhaps by heart always knew it wanted to belong to you, but the signs were always too subtle, too vague.

While looking for reasons to get to know you better, I never thought you'd let your smile accompany your handshake. I never thought you'd get my jokes enough to beat me up with your sharp comebacks.  I never thought you'd write to me when I am feeling extremely low.  I never thought you'd let me be a part of your deep thoughts as much as you did with your silly confessions. But you did.

You let me in to your life. You opened up to me like the most beautiful book in the world and there's no undoing it. I can't unread you anymore. With every page you let me turn and with every emotion you induced in me, I have only fallen more in love with you. I am smitten.

You are the one person, one thing, one reason I look forward to every single day. You are the one I want to share my dreams and jokes with. You are the one I want to run to when I am happy and when I am sad. You are the one I want to belong to when rest of the world feels alien. You are the one that I want to not think of but be with at off hours like these. You are the one I want to write hundreds of love letters to. 

Why? Because, you distract me in conversations that remotely involve you, you make me smile silly with a mere lingering thought, you keep me awake at night as I think of all the places we could travel to and all the food we could devour in. You make me wait for another day, just because it has you in it. You make me wish, I could be with you, forever starting today.

I don't know how you are feeling as you read this letter. But, I sincerely hope that a smile has painted your face and left a tinge of sparkle in your eyes.That's just one more thing that makes not loving you impossible. 

I am wearing my heart on my sleeves, and letting my heart rule my head. All I ask for in return is for you to let me know how you feel about me. Do we have a chance?