Read more: Noticing As a Love Language

Since early adulthood, I always had this very specific dream of a romantic relationship. It largely contained the usual suspects: a dream man with a chiseled chin who took me on electric dates and gazed at me with star-filled eyes that saw rights to the heart of me. (Eat your heart out, Edward Cullen.)

But there was something else there, too. Something simpler. Less cliché, and romcom inspired.

I wanted someone who knew my coffee order.

Now, there are layers to this one. I didn’t merely want him to know my order because I told him what it was; or because he asked for it while he was in line at the local coffee shop; or because I asked him to stop and get me one on his way home.

No – I wanted him to notice it. I wanted him to remember it. Perhaps not at first, but after multiple coffee shop forays. Perhaps, he would first notice after a long walk where we both talked and talked until our mouths ran dry and finally stopped to remedy the situation with coffee. I would sidle up to the counter; he would linger behind me and listen, cataloguing whatever concoction I designed, and stow it away to wherever men keep such things. He would watch over time. Observe. Remember.

Then, on a seemingly random day, he would surprise me.

It would be a crisp autumn morning with the windows open and the smells of breakfast wafting from the oven. He slips in the front door – fresh from an errand, or the Farmer’s market – with a bag full of treats and a custom coffee made especially for me. I would taste it, look at him, and quirk my head to the side.

“You remembered?”

He would shrug, in that casual way men seem to naturally inherit from somewhere deep within themselves. “Of course I did.”

And that would be my sign, I told myself. That it was safe to fall into a love that was consistent, reliable, and mine.

Now, the above scenario is unrealistically vivid, but the desire behind it is simple.

To love is to be seen. Not just in the big things, but amid the minutia of humanity.  The tasks, asks, and taxes of the everyday; not just the extraordinary.

The lavender syrup you add into your coffee? It isn’t just a preference; it’s a reflection of your loves, likes, and desires. It makes you happy, or brings you joy throughout a life that endlessly tries to yank that away.

And when someone notices that? The landscape changes.

Somehow, that dream buried itself under years of compromise. Emotional unavailability in partners drew me to rearrange old dreams. Not because I’d forgotten the old ones; they just suddenly seemed unattainable.

But we can’t change our dreams to match someone else’s behavior.

We need to make our dreams the standard.

We miss this so often in love. We settle, and we mourn, and we make excuses based on potential. We say that being noticed is a pipe dream, and our mind compensates by creating castles out of unseen efforts. We convince ourselves that emotionally bankrupt crushes have potential. They can meet our romantic vision; they can notice us – just maybe not in the way that we once dreamed. And that’s okay, we rationalize, because that’s all they can give.

But that thinking? It’s outdated conditioning.

It is not unrealistic to want someone to notice you for who you are and what you desire. In fact, it is the most basic of love languages.

Why? Because to be noticed is to be seen. And being seen? It goes beyond looks, or grandiose accomplishments; it is rooted in our being, in the steps we take to embrace everyday things.

I’d forgotten that dream until this weekend. A good friend and I were in the car, and I wanted to stop for coffee. She seamlessly rattled off my coffee order. I was so shocked that I almost wrecked the car. I gaped at her in the rearview mirror, said: “How did you remember that?”

She blinked. “I put it in my notes app so I wouldn’t forget. I do that for all my best friends.”

I let that sit with me a minute, then said: “Well, I wasn’t expecting you to remember that.”

She snorted with an unruffled air, and said with unflappable confidence: “The people who care about you notice, Lauren. It’s that simple.”

And so, I went home later that night and cleaned my house. I rolled through the chores one by one, with Olivia Dean murmuring in the background, and nibbled on what she said. That old romantic dream suddenly flitted to my mind.

At some point, I realized, I abandoned that dream. Not because it was unrealistic or unattainable, but because I was settling for less because others were giving me less. Being noticed had become unrealistic in my mind.

But being noticed? It isn’t unrealistic. It is the most basic thing someone can do to show you that they care.

And if they don’t? Then they aren’t meant to be in your life.

To love is to notice. And to notice? Well, that is to be seen for who you are truly meant to be. It is such a simple thing really, to pay attention to what someone loves.

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