When did you first know you loved her?

[NamerOfStars]

It was at the height of our single biggest game of Cookie Ninja. For the uninitiated, Cookie Ninja is a game where you each take an equal amount of freshly baked cookies and then spend the day together, discreetly placing where they'll be discovered without being spotted doing so. It's not about HIDING them, as an uneaten cookie is a wasted cookie (though note that that only applies in the absolute sense, as a cookie which is shared has achieved full validity of use); it's about sneakily hiding it while spending time right next to a person who's watching you closely, to observe you doing the placing. Points are rewarded not merely on purely stealth or misdirection, but also on cunning and audacity, and they are given in the form of smooches.

Anyway, we'd decided to go all out and start with two dozen cookies apiece. I'd pulled off some of my best work by setting up some carefully placed cords of fishing line, and had tested it so that, sitting to her right on the couch, I could make a few small movements with my right hand, and have a cookie on a paper towel slide all the way from the kitchen table to bump into her left thigh. From her perspective, I wouldn't even seem to be moving. It was going to be awesome. And indeed it was, until, at pretty much the LAST POSSIBLE SECOND, she gets up to go the the bathroom. I don't know if she just suspected something, or genuinely had to pee, but that's the one thing I couldn't do for her, so I tried to think of an excuse while she got up and began walking away- around the far side of the table, for reasons I still don't know. I thought for a second she didn't see the fishing line, only to have that nastily confirmed when she tripped over it- four of the six cords, in fact.

I was over the couch and helping her up in heartbeat; she was fine, but she'd had a small cut on her leg, and asked me to hand the first aid kit. I did so, forgetting momentarily why she'd fallen in the first place as she glared at me, then handed over the band-aid box, asking me to get her one while eating the cookie I'd stashed there with her other hand (whoops). The look of... loving annoyance, I think I'd call it, on her face made me realized just how fond of her I really was. I smiled back sheepishly, and I remember thinking that if this was what everyone was talking about when they talked about "love", then I finally understood what was so great about it. And then I froze, and her smile deepened, as I removed my hand from band-aid box, pulling with it the cookie she'd hidden inside it.

That, I think, was the moment. The willingness to be so gloriously, absurdly silly, and yet not lose track of what's really important. To let down your defenses so completely over something so silly, and yet take it with all due seriousness. To have the brains and the guts to go toe-to-toe with me, and to not let competitiveness blind her to how we felt about each other. To use one of the best damn cookie recipes I've ever tasted over a silly game. Were it not for the political objections it brings, I'd probably have started planning how I wanted to broach the subject of marriage. I didn't feel that love just because of what she did in that exact moment, but that was what made me realize it.

[Umish674]

Well when I first saw her it was her eyes there were so beautiful and her personality was close to my personality she might be older than me but that's what I fell in love with

[DavidFox]

Hard to pick an exact moment. A few months after knowing her, was past the lust phase and probably gave serious thought to how much it would hurt if she wasn’t in my life. For my ex girlfriend that’s what I remember at the time.

[Jjpayne]

I would not say love but enjoyment, is when we started to enjoy talking to each other. Getting to know each other. A natural and fun connection. It's when you just feel like you get each other, you support each other and you trust each other

[Agape93]

When she began opening up to me in earnest

[pizzalovershouse]

Just being so connected insame likes an intrest

[Sampike11]

Yea, her smile on a few specific occasions