What Does Settling Sound Like?

My friend sent me this article published on The Atlantic.com:
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200803/single-marry

The topic of "settling" starts to become a regular visitor to the thoughts of anyone single and over 30. You just went through a decade of watching friends get married to sweethearts, and suddenly you are almost out of single friends of the opposite sex. For better or for worse, you are left in a lot of those who did not settle.

But settling, like any facet of relationships, is not a black and white issue. The word connotes something negative in all of our minds -- who wants to settle for something less than what they want? I grew up settling for things because my mom didn't want to pay a certain amount or because she just didn't like what I liked. So as an adult, I've had to face my own inner child, that wants to demand things exactly as she wants them -- she's done settling.

Enter adulthood. The older you get, the more you realize almost nothing in this world is all one thing or all another -- all good or all bad. And hopefully, the fantasies that have been constantly spoon-fed down your throat since you left the womb about Prince Charming, perfect soul mates and matches made in heaven are starting to get stripped from your adult mind and you are exchanging it for reality. In that sense, everything we choose involves some amount of "settling," because nothing in this world is perfect. It's just different -- each with its own set of great and not so great things. The question isn't whether or not you should settle -- it's about knowing what you can settle for.

I appreciate much of what the writer of this article, Lori Gottlieb, is saying inasmuch as she bucks the whole notion of romantic dreams come true. We just don't hear that enough in our culture. But I do believe that romantic love is out there for everyone -- maybe just not in the way we've been brainwashed into thinking. For me, the most compelling part of the article comes she says: "Women across the country are poring over guidebooks that all boil down to determining, 'Does he like me?,' while completely overlooking the equally essential question, 'Do I like him?'" A woman with a crush is generally a woman in love with a fantasy of the man she has met, so rejection will feel like the one perfect man meant for you just labeled you not good enough. The reality is, he is not that one perfect man; he is just man. And if those particular imperfections either prevent him from appreciating who you are or have rendered him emotionally incapable, then who needs that? That's living in reality.

I could go on about this topic, but what do I really know? I apparently haven't settled either way.


Mr. Not-So-Perfect, "Shopgirl," 2005