That indescribable feeling

There’s just something there, something intangible that tells you you’ve met ‘the one.’

By TAMAR CASPI
heart cartoon 520 (photo credit: Courtesy)
heart cartoon 520
(photo credit: Courtesy)
You know that feeling. You can’t quite put your finger on it. You can’t find the words to describe it… it makes you act different, and you think you even believe you look different.
It’s been nagging you ever since your last date.
You can’t concentrate; your stomach is jittery.
You can’t stop smiling – everything is sunny and happy even when it isn’t.
The nervous anticipation makes you hopeful every time your phone makes a sound, you can’t sit still, and you suddenly are hopeful for the future – and all because of that feeling.
You think you have met “the one,” even though you have only met him or her once.
There’s just something there, something intangible, but it is something; and the best part is that it feels mutual (although you haven’t quite said so, you can feel that, too).
All you want to do is think about this person all day long, talk on the phone, text each other, and you talk about him or her to your family, your friends, the stranger in the elevator, whoever will listen.
You’re just so darn excited because you’ve never felt this way before. Or if you have, it’s been a long, long time, and this feeling is so very different than the last time.
Usually you get the opposite feeling – the one where you know that your date is so very much not the one that you want to leave even before the appetizers are served.
I got some sort of feeling upon laying my eyes on “S” for the first time. He simply walked through the door to the patio at a bar in Tel Aviv, and it took my breath away. A jolt of electricity went through my body.
If I hadn’t turned and looked at the door at that very moment, I would have missed it, but I did; and I felt something. So when he walked some imaginary tightrope tethered to my chair and sat behind me, I knew I couldn’t ignore that feeling.
Once we started talking, the conversation just flowed and the chemistry was visible and tangible.
We knew we had to see each other again and didn’t want to wait long to do so (eight hours, to be exact).
When one date leads to another, and another, and another with barely any time in between and yet you can’t stop thinking about, talking about and waiting to see each other during those short breaks, then you know you’ve got something good.
I thought I had felt that feeling in the past, but the way it felt with “S,” and the fact that it was mutual, made the others pale in comparison. I knew then that although those times were meaningful back then, either they were just lust, or it was me trying to find something where there was nothing; or I knew that my date felt strongly, and I thought I should, too.
It has to come naturally. You can’t force it to happen. And likely it will happen when you least expect it, like while you’re at a bar while in Israel on vacation.
Or it will be someone you met on one JDate that you didn’t think was going to be “it.”
Or it could that person you saw over and over again at a singles event, but never thought of romantically.
I CAN’T tell you how it will feel for you, if it will happen instantly, or on your first date, or not until your 15th date; but once you get that (hopefully, mutual) feeling where you don’t want to be apart and, well, you just know, then do it – talk to that guy or girl for eight hours straight through the night, even though you have work the next morning; or see each other every single night that week, even though you had to cancel plans with other people. Pack up your things and move to Israel, even though you’ve only known each other for one week.
Hindsight being 20/20, it’s easy for me to look back and know that my successful relationship with “S” is different from failed relationships with everyone else.
Duh, right? So obviously I can say that the indescribable feeling I had in that bar and during that weeklong date was so much better and so different than the other times I thought I had that feeling.
But in retrospect, when you’re in the moment, it is hard to tell if your heart and mind are playing tricks on you, or not. When you’re single you want “it” to happen so badly, it’s hard to decipher fantasy from reality. You have to ask yourself questions about who you intrinsically are and not skew your identity to make something happen that isn’t there.
If you’re acting and not being yourself, then that feeling isn’t real. If you’re caught up in the physical attraction and not much else, than that feeling isn’t real.
If you can’t stop talking, if there’s chemistry and you don’t want to be apart, if you have so much in common but respect each other’s differences, then that feeling quite possibly is real.
Now you need to figure out what to do about it.