Him: “I love you.”

Her: “Thanks.”

---

This scene is the moment in a relationship wherein the rubber meets the road. No. There needs to be a better way to phrase it than that. When push comes to shove? No. That doesn’t quite work, either, as I hope shoving is avoided. When the Rubicon is crossed?

Maybe an idiom doesn’t work here (I’m open to suggestions.)

There is usually a point in a relationship wherein the two parties either decide to pursue a long-term relationship, or not, and the “I love you” conversation is often that point. I once dated a girl for several months when we hit this moment. I was the one who delivered the “I’m sorry” part of that conversation. It went as well as was possible, but it eventually became part of my own personal mythology. While she cried, for a very long time, I… did not. My friends – when I told them this story later – thought the mental picture of me sitting there stone-faced while she cried on my shoulder was hilarious. The laughing was at my expense, not hers, as most people who know me well seem to agree that I am unusually disconnected from the up and down of human feelings.