If you’re a veteran lesbian, chances are you’ve been in at least one long term relationship with a girl. You may have noticed that it was scary and difficult. However, if you are new to the scene and curious about the future, here is a list of things you can expect to find yourself experiencing once you trap the lady love of your life.

Olympic drinking

Prepare to be constantly tipsy. In your new relationship, you will feel joyously carefree and adopt a devil-may-care attitude, which will make every day with your girlfriend seem like a mini celebration. Going on an autumn walk? Wine in a traveling cup. She just got out of her linguistics final? Shots! You got off work at midnight instead of 2:00 a.m.? A house call with cheap vodka and champagne is in order. You’re so excited to be together you make every day a party, even if it’s a Tuesday afternoon and you have papers to write.

Olympic crying

Get ready for an onslaught of feelings, girls! You will find new and interesting reasons to be emotional, and therefore take crying to new levels. Cry because she’s the one. Cry because you’re not sure she’s the one. Cry because you’re drunk and her smile is so beautiful. Cry because she’s the only person who understands you. Cry because even after four months, she still doesn’t fully understand you. Cry because she’s fucking you too hard but you don’t want to ruin the moment. Cry because she’s crying. Really, the possibilities are endless.

Severe REM loss

Face it – once you get into a serious lesbian relationship, you will never sleep again. The hours you used to spend sleeping will suddenly be filled with one or more of these: passionate sex, mechanical sex, drunk sex, half-assed sex, angry sex, or a screaming fight about not having sex, followed by pity sex and a faked orgasm (which you don’t normally do, but damn it, you’re really tired).

Expansion

Of the horizontal variety. In a relationship, it is almost guaranteed that you will get fat and happy. You will lie contentedly in her arms on your plush couch among your eclectic throw pillows and reflect on how lucky you are. You will order in and eat out. In a spirit of domestic goddess-osity, you will attempt to cook dinner from scratch, which will of course result in half the kitchen on fire and subsequent takeout from the Chinese bistro down the street. You won’t mind. You’re in love.

BBS (Broke Bitch Syndrome)

Enjoy your savings now, because once you get a girlfriend, they will disappear. Bar tabs, vacations, birthday/Christmas/anniversary/Fourth of July presents, decadent seven-course dinners, her car payment, that $245 pair of jeans you impulsively bought because they looked cute on her and she needed cheering up, etc. will chew up and spit out your bank account. You will need to apply for a new credit card just to be able to afford Valentine’s Day.

DSAS (Different-Sized Arms Syndrome)

Look, at some point you are going to have to finger-bang your girlfriend. And unless you’re perfectly ambidextrous (or at least ambi-competent), you’re going to be using your dominant hand. Hours of finger-banging will cause your tendons to become extremely flexible and your forearm to exhibit muscle tone you never thought possible. Plus, if she likes it rough, you’ll also develop quite an impressive bicep. Of course, after you break up you’ll start lifting regularly to even out your two different arms, but one will always be slightly larger. Damn it.

Mobile phone aerodynamics

It is also likely that, at some point, you will get out-of-proportion upset over a passive-aggressive text or short, stroppy phone call, and in a flash of rage you’ll decide you’re done with her shit and hurl the phone across the room, at the ceiling, or into moving traffic. You will later send her a Facebook message telling her that you lost your phone, you’re sorry for ignoring her calls, and you’ll be home for dinner.

Chronic worrying

Your laid-back nature will suddenly give way to irrational paranoia and gnawing self-doubt. You will begin to worry constantly, about everything: what she’s doing when she doesn’t answer your texts (even though you know she’s in for the night), what she meant when she said “I really need to concentrate on my work right now,” and why it’s 2:30 a.m. and she isn’t back from that “talk” with her ex yet. You will question everything – yourself, your relationship, your life choices, whether you’re even gay – and freak out accordingly

Chronic apologizing

In addition to worrying about everything, you will start apologizing for everything. Or, alternately, you will never apologize, and be the one to stomp off in a huff in the middle of an argument even when you’re wrong.

Invincibility

When you’re in love, you’re invincible. Nothing can touch you. The world can go to hell in a hand basket; you share a heartbeat and that’s all that matters. There’s nothing to worry about anymore – you’re safe. You’re warm. Protected. You’ve made a home in each other’s arms and hearts and you’re facing the future fearlessly, together, head-on. That is, of course, until she finds an unread message with one too many smiley faces in your inbox from some hot girl. Suddenly, you’ve got a lot of explaining to do.