DEAR ABBY: I'm turning 30, and I have had many relationships. Some of them lasted more than a year, but many have been short-lived. I have been engaged once and proposed to three times. It's a joke among my friends that I'm a serial dater, but I don't feel it's worth my time to sit around and be depressed about something that's not working out.
I have been seeing someone now for the last four months, and I can honestly say I have never felt this way before. We complement one another in so many ways and have much to learn from each other as well. I'm as in love with him as he is with me.
My issue is, nobody around me takes it seriously because I have had so many relationships and "loved" so many times. I try to tell them this is different, but they brush him off as just another guy who will be gone with the wind someday.
I don't want to take it personally, and I'm not usually the type to care about what others think, but it irks me because I am so passionate about this man. Should I try harder to make them understand, or just enjoy the love that I'm in? -- LOVER IN PENNSYLVANIA
DEAR LOVER: Just be happy. Sometimes the harder we try to sell something, the more resistant the buyer becomes. You do not have to convince anyone that this is the real thing. As the relationship develops, those around you will see it for themselves.