Many of us can escape our single lives at any time if we’re willing to give up on the forever love we’re hoping for and settle for what’s available here and now. But even though we can give in and find someone who’s good enough to spend our days with, there’s so much more we’re willing to hold out for, and I won’t ever settle on someone who’s just good enough.
- Good on paper isn’t everything. Sure, anyone can find someone with a job, a house, and working parts to build a family. Anyone can find someone they’re simply content with, but relationships shouldn’t start from a place of just fitting the bill. It’s the substance that exists between two people and it goes far beyond logistics. Real love isn’t just about tolerating each other and being each other’s best friend, it’s also about feeling that burning desire to do anything and everything for each other to keep the passion alive forever.
- I want a side of excitement with my early bird special. When I’m approaching my 60s and need to start having my dinner’s at 5 pm, I want the person sitting across from me to be someone I still adore — not just because he’s a good man, but because he’s the man who pushed me to be the best version of myself throughout my entire life with him.
- If it isn’t challenging, it gets boring. While I know relationship ruts are a thing, I want someone who’s a fighter like me, who will work through the stuff that gets ugly in life, because it’s bound to get ugly at times. I don’t want easy and I don’t want simple. I want someone who challenges me to my core and pushes me to continue to strive to be the best version of myself while I push them to do the same. I don’t want to just be complacent.
- I want someone who awakens the parts of me I don’t know yet. I want someone who makes me feel alive not just by the way my heart beats or the air that I breathe, but someone who dissects my soul and shows me new facets of the life that I don’t yet know. I don’t want boring or run-of-the-mill, and I don’t want to get stuck in routines. I want every day to be a new surprise waiting to unfold.
- There’s a perfect person for everyone, if you’re willing to wait. I don’t want to wait forever, but I don’t want to rush into things now. I want trial and error and I want to experience the ones I know aren’t my forever because it’ll make it clearer when the right person arrives. How many of us just stop at just good enough and wonder what might have been if we’d just taken more of a chance and trusted that good enough really isn’t as good as it gets?
- I want the journey to have been worth it. Because if all of the waiting, the hurting, and the longing was in only for someone who just fit the bill in the end, what have I been fighting for this entire time? Maybe I’m a dreamer, and maybe I’m delusional, but I’m not looking for perfection. I’m holding out for my imperfect perfection — the one that makes my insides tremble and the one who invades my mind with endless challenges to my heart. I want more than security and I want more than someone standing next to me in every face of life. I want someone who made this journey worth it. And for that, I’ll never settle.
