Talks with the Mirror

Lucky 13: standards

2020

We all have standards when it comes to relationships. There are some specific little quirks that we search for in a partner and we try to find someone who checks as many of our boxes as possible. Be it good breath, college degree, or sizable sex organs. 

Yet it can also still occur that we bump into someone who barely checks anything off our list, but none-the-less manages to mark us and somehow create their very own category, if you will.

Those are the complicated ones.

Because, up to now, every protocol of how to deal with your significant other has been created towards this sorta-perfect standard-satisfying person that we are quite honestly unlikely to meet. Then, all of a sudden, we have someone who is knocking our socks off and we have no idea how to react, and nothing of which they do was previously expected making you sometimes feel unprepared to feel.

The real question is yet to come, though:

Are standards ever too high, or are we settling ahead of time?

Is it wrong to want someone who loves dogs, writes you letters, and still finds time to give you a lap dance? Is it too demanding to search for a lover who will push you to be better, be there for you when you're lonely, and still find it in themselves to crave your body? Is it truly asking for  too much to want to be someone's favorite person, emergency contact, and first choice?

When the thing in question is love, I don't think there is anything of wrong with wanting to give your heart to someone who makes you feel extraordinary. 

In life we will be many things to many people. We will be sons, daughters, aunts, uncles, cousins, employees, students, apprentices, leaders, losers, winners, players, cooks... and maybe one day we will be loved.

I get that there is no real point in making love your main life goal, because there is no assurance that you will find it, and it would only really cover a small percentage of everything you do in your day. But doesn't it make everything a little bit better? 

That wait in traffic hits differently when you know you're getting home to this amazing woman that happened to bump into you two years ago.

The snappy comment from your boss just slides off your shoulders when you remember that at the end of the quarter you'll finally have enough money to take the love of your life on a vacation you both look forward to.

Even something as hopeless as a lethal disease can come to be bearable if you have someone who cares for your heart standing by your side letting you know that you won't ever be alone.

Therefore, call me old fashioned, but I want as few failed tries at love as possible. 

I will leave my standards as they should be, and say no when it need be, and I won't settle for anything other than that which will make me happy even when I'm about to shove twelve buckets of horse shit for forty minutes. 

It's not too much to ask if it is one of the only things I want: true love.

When I mention settling too early, I simply mean if we are choosing someone just because they are there, and bending our standards because we are simply impatient to wait for the person we actually want. 

I see it way too often that people who are unused to putting themselves out there will settle for the one person who will go inside their box and pull them out. There is nothing wrong with that, in fact I know many people who are still together and happy. My concern is for the ones who are so afraid of rejection that they will automatically leave the search for true love behind if they find someone who likes them first, therefore safe-guarding them from the emotional turmoil of accepting the fact that they aren't liked back. 

The problem here is that person who went to chase you out of your box. They truly want you. They went in there because they knew you were the one for them. You simply let them in, let them get you, and let them pull you out. Not knowing the difference between being wanted, period, and being wanted while wanting back. 

Love is a two-way street. No one can carry the weight on their own forever, hence why I think that standards are necessary but should be kept reasonable. If your standard is to date Super-Man, you already know it ain't gonna happen. If your standard is to date Cat-woman, ring me up ;)