"Whatever She Says? Just Listen."

Sitting in the grass at the park with one of my best friends and the person I had recently started seeing, I half jokingly asked the person that's always been there for me what the new person in my life needed to know when it came to me.

They paused before simply answering:

"Whatever Olive says—just listen to her."

I wrinkled my nose, slightly disappointed by the answer to my silly question. I thought to myself, and what exactly is she supposed to do with that?

And then, after my second of thought, I laughed out loud.

What an idea—to simply "listen to Olive."

A moment later, though, I felt unexpectedly emotional thinking about what they had actually meant.

My best friend and I tend to be quite passionate when it comes to our opinions. In fact, that's partly how this blog came into existence for me in the first place.

We can be so passionate, in fact, that we end up screaming over each other, sounding like a married couple that anyone from the outside would assume absolutely hates each other.

Our opinions can differ greatly and sometimes anger tends to take over. Yet somehow, afterwards, there's nothing but affection and love between us before we inevitably get heated all over again and the cycle begins once more.

Some of these arguments ensue because I tend to ask questions that provoke emotional outbursts. I want the deeper thoughts—the things most people don't ask for, or sometimes don't even think to question to begin with. I want conversations that are raw and honest and I know that kind of openness can be overwhelming for some people.

I don't always realize I'm doing it when I ask the question. I just genuinely love conversations that get underneath everything.

When I love someone, I am also very open about how I feel or think. I tend to invite people to be vulnerable with me—to make them feel as though there is a safe place to put the things they don't usually say out loud.

And that combination can be emotionally charged.

My best friend, at this point, has no choice. They get all the questions and all of the honesty and somehow, it has created this equation where our conversations turn into these intense, loud debates that sound much more like arguments than they actually are.

So after feeling annoyed, then laughing, and finally reflecting on what they'd actually meant—I realized:

Through all of our disagreements and discombobulated blow ups, they are always listening to me.

Even when they put up a vigorous argument against whatever I'm saying, even when they seem determined to prove me wrong, they have already heard me.

They've taken my points into consideration. They've thought about them. They've allowed themselves to understand where I'm coming from—even when they don't necessarily agree (at least out loud or at first).

And I realized that while I've always known I am loved in this friendship, I am also deeply heard.

My opinions matter to them. My thoughts matter. The strange questions I ask, the things I obsess over, the ideas I can't stop thinking about—they matter, even when I don't always get to know what they do.

Our connection is so deeply bonded that I knew exactly what they meant in that moment.

What I have to say, think and what I share carries a kind of importance to them. And they believed it should carry that same importance to someone new entering my life.

Their advice was to take what I say and truly feel it—truly hear it. To really take it in—not secretly because I'm usually right (which issssssssn't wrong), but it was something much more meaningful than that.

It was: pay attention to her.

Listen when she speaks. Listen to what she's actually saying. Don't just wait for your turn to respond. Don't dismiss the questions because they're too deep or the feelings because they're too much.

Take her words in.

Because these are the parts of her that matter most.

And honestly maybe that's what being loved really is—not always agreeing with someone, but caring enough to really listen to them when they speak.

It was such a simple thing to say but could that be the kind of advice we should all give the people we love?

What if the person who is right for us isn't the person who always understands us, but the person who always wants to?