To the girl who will date my brother,

Some days, I looked at him and wondered “who the heck is going to want to date that?” as he made some bodily function-like noise at the table or came downstairs wearing two different types of plaid or wearing neon orange and kelly green in the same outfit or drenched in body spray or with unruly hair because my mom hadn’t told him reminded him quite enough times that he needed to brush his hair.

I’m his sister, so it’s my job to roll my eyes at them when they can’t figure out the whole matching clothes thing or the whole brushing your hair and taking showers on the regular is what normal humans do. More importantly, I’m the older sister so it’s my job to give them endless grief while they go through those oh so wonderful stages of their lives, including the stage of their lives that involves you.

But the thing is, when I think of my brothers, I don’t just think of the ones I’m biologically related to, the ones that are younger than me. I’ve had the fantastic experience of growing up with guys a few years older than me who I now consider to be older brothers I never had, which is a little weird at first but you’re going to have to get used to it. And I didn’t get to laugh and roll my eyes at them while they went through their awkward years in life, so I’ve got to make up for those lost years somehow.

Speaking of getting used to, I’m not going to lie, I’m probably going to be slightly rude, snarky and maybe even mean at first. After all, it’s my job to make sure that you’re good enough for him because I know how girls are because I am one and I’ve been around my fair share of them.

Don’t read too much into it, the semi dirty looks are the snarky comments I will more than likely make about you and to you, if he’s dating you then I’m going to assume you’re somewhat of a good person because he is a good person. I’ll probably warm up to you eventually, it just might take a few weeks.

Don’t break his heart, please. He’s a good person and as cool as he may want you to think he is, you are capable of breaking his heart and he does have feelings.

If you don’t have the best of intentions, stop right now and turn around and tell him you don’t think that it’s going to work out. I know how girls can be and I know some girls like to play games. That’s not going to go over well with me I promise you that. People I love have been in relationships like that before and it is the last thing I want to see anyone go through, let alone someone like him. Again, he’s a good person and deserves someone who is going to love him as much or even more as I already do and have.

I’ll be your friend eventually, but always know that he comes first and if anything ever happens between the two of you, I’m going to take his side unless he’s just being a moron, which, let’s face it, will probably happen a time or two. In those cases, I’ll gladly smack, I mean talk, some sense back into him. But if you do something that hurts him, you’ll find out that that saying “hell hath no fury like a woman scorned” should really be “hell hath no fury like when a you hurt a woman’s brother” if that makes any sense. I’ve grown up with brothers and with guys in general who’ve taught me what the word “overprotective” means and I’ve turned into an overprotective sibling myself.

I also happen to be a pretty good judge of character, so if I have a hunch about you, I will not hesitate to tell him about them. And if you tell me a “secret” about something you did that would hurt him in some way, I promise you that I will tell him, so don’t even bother telling me if you do something you can’t tell him about.

After reading this far, you probably think I’m a some sort of crazy mean big sister who never wants any girl to get close to her brother, but I’m not. I’m someone who loves and cares about him and knows what a great guy he is and knows he doesn’t deserve to be hurt and I’ll do anything and everything I can to make sure he doesn’t get hurt. In reality, I want to be your friend because if he cares about you then I do too. It may take some time for me and you to get used to this whole relationship thing because I’m not used to this and neither are you but I hope that it will end with you and I being friends.

Even if we do become great friends or something, always remember that I was here first. I was his sister first and I always will be no matter what your relationship with him turns out like. I’ll be there when he graduates from high school, from college, when he gets his first “big boy” job and there’s no guarantee that you will be, remember that. So when he comes and sees me before you after his hockey game or when he calls me before he calls you when he gets his first real job, remember that sometimes I will come first for him because I’m his sister and family is forever.

I’ll always love him because he’s my brother and that means I’ll always want what’s best for him. And if what’s best for him is you, then so be it.

-A lovingly overprotective sister