I was shopping with my with my bestie today, or rather, helping her to shop. She needed some inexpensive clothes for her clinicals (she's in school to be a physical therapist) and so dragged me to Kohl's. So as we have done since high school, we nabbed the big dressing room so she could model her selections as I nod or grimace in response. It suddenly hit me as I watched my friend - who is already married with a kid - while I sat there in my dry-clean only dress and knee-high boots pounding away at my new I-Pod Touch to plan out my first week in Austin that I'm on my way to becoming that lonely career woman that I always feared being. (Note: I'm only wearing a dress in Michigan because 3 weeks of my momma's cooking = too-tight jeans). I am not in a serious relationship, I have two careers, and I am reveling in the single-girl-in-the-city lifestyle. Not that anything is wrong with that. But if I was given a choice between having a cozy family in a tiny house years from now or living an urban lifestyle in a high-rise downtown apartment loft, I'd choose the former. My current choices, I realize, are leading to the latter.
I'm a bit of a workaholic, I admit, but it's not because I really believe I have no time for relationships (the romantic kind). I date, but I haven't found anyone I'm willing to slow down my lifestyle for. I figure, I'm happy, I'm self-sufficient, so I don't need anyone to take care of me (...not that I don't want someone to take care of me). If I were to settle down, it would be for someone I want as a companion, someone I can walk side-by-side with.
I know a lot of fantastic men in Austin. Men who are genuine and kind. Men who are men - the kind women everywhere are looking for. But as fun as I have hanging out with those men, I haven't wanted to enter into a serious relationship the ones I have met because of this intangible feeling called "lack of chemistry or compatibility." I've met men who on paper have everything I'm looking for. We have similar ambitions, similar interests, and I have a lot of fun conversing with them. But I just don't feel that "zsa-zsa-zsu." Which leads me to wonder: am I waiting for something that doesn't exist?
In other words, am I choosing not to settle or am I in need of a reality check?
When I talk to my married friends or those who are in long-term serious relationships, most say they never got the butterflies when they met their partner. That we've been too influenced by the fairy tale concept of the perfect Prince Charming and that relationships are more practical than that. They also use the frustrating phrase "you'll just know." You may not know right away, mind you, but when you meet the right person, eventually, "you'll know." (Sidenote, my bestie used to scoff at that phrase with me until she met "the one." Then she crossed over to the dark side of "you'll know"ers).
So say I'm dating a guy, and he wants to take the relationship a step further, and I'm just not feeling the zsa-zsa-zsu, what should I do? Should I hold on in case somewhere down the line "I'll know?" Or should I be alarmed that while he's perfect on paper, I'm not feeling it, and thus pull the plug on the relationship? Again, am I choosing not to settle by ending it, or am I sentencing myself to a lifetime of being alone?
Of course, I realize I'm only 25 years young and sentencing myself to a lifetime of loneliness would be a bit of a hyperbole for ending one relationship, but once can become twice, twice becomes five, and next thing I know, I'm 50 and alone.
Again, I'm curious to know what others think. How do you know if you're settling or holding out for something that doesn't exist?
4 comments:
For the record, I totally got butterflies when I met my husband. It was literally love at first sight. I never thought that was possible, either. But I'm also a hopeless romantic.
But even having that, I got married when I was 22, which seems to go against anything I ever had imagined for myself, I actually thought I'd be the forever single career woman.
I didn't settle for my man, but I "settled" for marrying young. I had a small wedding, didn't have a bachelorette party, didn't have bridesmaids. I got my dress on ebay. Although I had my fairy tale romance, it also included a step-daughter and being really really really poor for most of the beginning of our time married. Oh, and still? Haha.
If it makes you feel better, my relationship was a mess on paper: months of distance until graduation, a daughter and a crazy ex, tons of international paperwork and bureaucracy... but sometimes love really does conquer all :)
PS the moral of that story was: hold out, but when it comes, it just might not be easy
Ahh...the rules of love are definitely a tough thing to delineate, aren't they??
I don't think I'm an expert by any means, but I do love talking about relationships and would like to throw in my two cents...
I think first it's important that two people have fairly closely-matched values. What I mean by that is that the two of you share similar life-views, maybe similar general goals, and have a similar way of prioritizing your life (family and friends, money, popularity, etc.). I think it's important to have some interests in common, too....not necessarily share ALL interests, but enough that you'll be enjoying time together. Other than those two frontiers, I think differences can be great for a relationship- they can be fabulous portals to growth and change, and help you realize things about yourself you never knew (for example, he's got a strange addiction to Haitian food - who knew you'd get hooked on that stuff too? things like that - those differences might encourage you to try things you never would've otherwise).
But back to the main point about holding out, that's a tough call. I, too, have heard many people say that the one they've wound up with gave them "butterflies" the first time. But I also know a lot of people who didn't get butterflies right away. Some people just don't get them until later. I, too, fall into the second category. Sometimes I would get "infatuation-butterflies" from a pair of sexy eyes catching mine across the room, but they are short-lived flutters and don't last more than a week or two. Superficial butterflies. When it comes to the best relationship I've had thus far, I didn't know right away. In fact, I didn't until after several months of hanging out. We were dating, and having fun, and I wasn't sure where it was going. We shared the same values, we had similar interests, and we got along great. And then after a few months, they looked deep into my eyes and said: "I love you."
Guess what? Butterflies. The world froze, time stopped, and my stomach turned upside down.
Maybe they were there all along and I just was too scared to notice them because I didn't know where the other person was going with the whole thing. Once that wall started to come down though, I relaxed, and I felt them. Years later, we are still together going strong, and the butterflies are there every day.
I don't know if this is helpful in the least bit. But either way I hope it gives you hope.
The dating game is a way to create social drama, real life entertainment. If you want to be in a real relationship, then you need to pursue a real relationship, not a drama played out.
I would not rely on chemistry. Hormones are not something to rely on. However, I'd hate to be the guy who finds out your settling. Instead choose to be passionate. Don't settle, but choose. In the end it's not chemistry or settling. It's about truly falling in love, through many daily decisions. Of course you will know what are non-negotiables, and if you find it's not a match, then drop that sucker. However, keep in mind, few things are in this set of core values.
I disagree that good relationships take a 'long' time to develop. When I look to people I highly respect in healthy long-lived relationships, they often moved quickly by modern standards. Yes they take work, yes it is hard, but continuance is always a choice. Today we think that it's all automatic, and if it isn't we feel robbed, cheated of something that is due us, and break-up or divorce, or worse yet, moan and groan and make the other person miserable.
Before the modern game, men laid it all out and pursued, as they should ( I would recommend women giving hints.). Women either returned that affection, or didn't. Falling in love is not a passive action. It is active. If you want to fall in love, then you must allow yourself to be loving. It is a choice. Some people happen to make that choice easily, some don't. Some require it to be a mutual feeling before they declare it, some don't.
However, all this said, singleness is also a choice. Singleness doesn't mean you don't love, or are socially awkward. In fact I know many chosen single people who are very loving with many people, and with social graces to be admired.
Singleness allows you to focus on certain things that are harder to when you are married. But it's all a choice. Right now you're choosing, and many girls like you, to focus on career. That choice will remain until you change it. It's ok. If that's what you want. The choice is yours.
Just because you choose singleness now, doesn't negate your ability to change it now, or later. We are rational creatures and have the ability to make decisions, when we are fully aware we have the decisions to make.
You're a lovely girl Tracy, and someday you can make someone very happy, you already do make many people happy. You're intelligent, witty, thoughtful, fun, creative, and you know the Lord. You have everything, and if you want to be in a relationship, there are many guys out there interested. It's always a choice for you to choose and let it happen. Allow yourself to be captivated, and captured. Yes you're independent, until you allow yourself to become in some days, dependent. There is no one decision that will accomplish this, but a series of sacrificial daily decisions that lead to romance, love, and a life of relationship.
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