Love is a quality of attention

My friend Anna, whom I've known since college, sent a recent e-mail update.

London and I couldn't be happier," she gushed. She'd just gotten downsized from her sweet investment banking job at Merrill Lynch, and her on-again, off-again relationship with a Belgian noble (no joke) had come to a definitive end.

What was the source of this happiness, so intense I could feel it glowing from my computer monitor? Anna has a new love, and without her having to say it, I can tell he's The One. Now that Anna has found the real deal, she sees the disaster in her old relationship.

Love — especially long-term, marriage worthy love — is a paradoxically simple thing. When we're in the thick of a complicated relationship, we wonder if we're with the right person. We debate with ourselves and meditate on the merits of our partner. But the act of questioning our relationship is, in fact, the answer. When love is right, there's no room for doubt.

Even knowing this, I still grapple with the is-he-or-isn't-he dilemma.

An old crush, Justin, started calling over the summer. He spaced his calls out over two weeks, then dropped out of communication for two months. He resurfaced right before Thanksgiving and asked if he could take me to dinner.

On the way into town, I laughed and asked if he remembered the times I served as designated driver when our group of friends went out to the clubs. "You'll have to take it easy tonight," I said. I pointed to the stick shift. "I can't drive a manual."

Justin reached across the car and placed his hand over mine. The blood rushed to my cheeks, and I felt the tips of my ears burn. He picked up my hand and moved it to the gear shaft. "I'll teach you."

He kept his hand over mine as he talked me through the gears. A fist of warm energy started in my belly and opened upward, so that my temples were sweating by the time we reached the restaurant. He pointed to the side windows and laughed. "Looks like we steamed up the car."

At dinner and for the rest of the evening, Justin was friendly and funny — just the way I remembered him — and perfectly platonic. Did I imagine the steamy intensity of that driving lesson?

At the end of the night, he walked me to my door — a chivalrous gesture.

"It was great seeing you again," he said. He opened his arms for a hug — the classic goodbye between friends — and I stepped into them. He leaned his head down, and for the briefest of seconds, pressed his warm lips to my cheek. A kiss between friends? I agonized over that millisecond of a cheek brush for two

weeks. Two weeks, because that's how long it took him to call again. I felt myself tripping down the familiar does-he-or-doesn't-he route when I came across my horoscope (oh, great giver of advice) in the morning paper: "The one who loves you is easy to spot. It's the same one who calls, writes, can't seem to get enough of your time. Love is a quality of attention."

With that, I summarily placed him back in the friend category, where perhaps he had been all along.

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