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The freedom to do whatever I need to if I need to take care of myself.
This part’s dark, but think about how many people you know or know about in the different parts of your life. How many times have you heard about a couple hitting a certain stage of life and things go really bad? But they’re trapped. The spouses might hate each other, or one is dying to get out of the relationship and the other is clinging on for dear life. Maybe they’re just completely indifferent to each other. The kids are miserable, the mortgage is underwater, and they’re stuck in jobs they hate. There aren’t too many things they could do to make it better if they ever got a break.
There are lots of things that have gone wrong in my life, things that were never about me or what I did, things I couldn’t control. I’m finally in a position where I might be able to take big, positive steps to make lots of things better. When those doors open, I can go through them without being held back my someone who’s not ready to move forward.
I haven’t been on a date in way too long, so I don’t know…but when friends and acquaintances ask, I tell them that life got in the way. The ones that tsk-tsk or start to lecture me might get a less-than-nice recap, which includes things like major health issues, a few deaths and catastrophes in the family, and a felony assault (I was the victim). “I had sort of a full plate dealing with those.” The condescension usually stops at that point.
But someone who isn’t condescending probably has a worldview more compatible with mine. Sometimes life DOES throw people enormous challenges, and making time and emotional energy for a date is way down the priorities list, way past things like “surviving.” If someone responds in a way that hints that they understand life isn’t the same for everyone, I can either pass over it lightly or touch on whatever’s relevant in a much more matter-of-fact way. Maybe I can even make it funny, if they like gallows humor. (A man who has a wise, compassionate outlook AND a gallows sense of humor is WAY my kinda guy, so that whole question can be a great litmus test of compatibility in a date or a friend/wingman.)
I think I’ve heard “you’re too picky” more often than any of them. Which is funny, because there were times I went to the trouble of taking a deep breath, deconstructing all the reasons I stopped dating someone or turned someone down. Each time I did this wretched practice, the person I did it with inevitably agreed with me at each step, yet concluded that somehow I was still too picky.
The retort “Okay, then, I should just settle down with someone to make you happy and the hell with whether or not he makes me happy” seems to shut them up for a while.
It’s pretty random if you wind up in the right place and time with someone who’s a great match when you’re both ready for it. People who find the match (or convince themselves that a not-great match is because they are scared of being alone) seem to overlook that part and assume it’s because they did something that the rest of us haven’t. I know great people who haven’t happened to meet a great fit and some awful people who find partners like they’re falling out of trees.
