Recently I’ve been thinking a lot about defining exactly what I want from a woman and what I don’t. A big breakthrough for me has been the ability to spot the ones that are bad for me and focus on the ones that are good. Being someone who has overcome the obstacle of always having walls up, I never really figured out how much I cared about someone until now.

My story is like that of many others … I realized once it was too late how much I cared about someone. I found myself in relationships that didn’t make me happy, while I kept those that would have made me happy at bay. An important thing I’ve started to observe is how I do things without thought for someone else and how the little things make me think of them on a daily basis. It was these little observations that made me realize I care about someone and that I am capable of loving someone else — because I realized how much I care for and love myself.

There is someone special in my life that due to timing, we can’t be together. I’m ok with that right now because I see the bigger picture and that what we are doing now is creating a really great friendship, foundation, and trust. This is something that I think tends to get overlooked and why relationships come and relationships go. I find myself in situations when I’m shopping, seeing things and thinking, oh, she would really love that! Or this thing reminds me of the time when we were here or had this certain conversation or joke.

Another thing that made me realize how genuinely I cared for this girl is that I’ve let my walls down effortlessly with her and trust her with personal things and conversations. In the past, it never felt right and I resisted — but learning to realize how healthy that is and how great it is to care about someone, you almost want them to get to know you for who you really are because you know they aren’t judging you.

There’s hundreds of little things that I could cite that have made me realize I care for someone, but the most important is realizing how this person makes me feel and that I feel like I’ve found unconditional love.