A few months ago, while discussing my ongoing list of things I'd want in a man and/or a relationship, Growler said, "You might have to settle. You may have to be willing to accept 85% of what you want, if everything else is worth it."
I talked to Absolem about it a couple of weeks later. "Oh, she's right," he said, complete seriousness on his face. "You'll probably have to take less than what you want, if you want to be in a relationship. Though I don't get why you'd want one, when you can have so many."
I reactivated my online dating account this week. After I reviewed a few dozen potential new matches, the site told me I was too picky and should loosen up as far as my standards were concerned.
Even Queen Frostine urged me to go into my next relationship without such high expectations. Her point, she stresses, is that I should be able to learn to be happy within the confines of who I'm with, for who they are, rather than constantly comparing them to the past or to my ideal.
"I love living in Chicago," said my well-traveled friend, "but I also really love San Francisco and London. I could totally live in either of those cities just as easily as I live here."
"Sure, but you'd always miss some things about Chicago," I pointed out.
And then there's Bounder. He says he knows he can never be 100% of what I want or need, 100% of the time. He wants to, has the desire, but not the capacity.
Well who the fuck can?
It's romantic to imagine a man could love me so much that he strived every day to be everything for me, especially one who could see me and reach me and touch me inside and out the way Bounder (and even sometimes Absolem) could. I'd like to think that DH tried, but right now I'm still too caught up in the aftermath to really see it clearly.
But romantic or not, it's fucking ludicrous.
No man will ever be able to be 100% of anything for me and certainly not all the time. That's an unreasonable expectation to place on another individual. We are beautifully flawed humans, and to demand perfection from someone is asking to be disappointed or worse.
All I ever expected from the men I loved was that they be there how and when they could, and that they do it fully and openly and honestly. By the time I really loved them, I knew who and what they were. I knew their histories and their fears and their double-edged swords. I knew the potential of their hearts, and I just wanted them to work toward that, both for me and for themselves.
I never thought that was an unreasonable expectation. Apparently I was wrong.
Don't tell me I'm wonderful and deserve more. Don't tell me you wish you were able to do these things, to be what I deserve, because I am special enough to be worth that. If I have that value to you, then honor that. If you love me and I am so deserving, then make the attempt to live up to the potential I see in you, that you say you see in yourself. When you err—hell, even when you fail—if there's still potential and value, then keep working.
My heart would not have seen yours if it weren't so very special, nor would it have loved you if you weren't worth my own hard work and effort.
So it might be nice to imagine that prince among men, who would care for me and fill in the gaps I can never quite seem to fill. The one who could kiss me like no other and love me no matter how hard the day was. Who could be there at night when I both need and want him. Who understands my sense of humor and appreciates my intensity, who loves me not in spite of my batshit but because of it. The one who could love me for me and not for what I can do for him.
That is the ideal I have to relinquish. That's where I have to settle.
I can find a playmate, a great lover, an outstanding kisser, someone who's sober, and maybe even an Irish guy who is bigger than I am. But all of that in a man who can really love me for me? That'll never happen.
I've met a lot of guys this year who were great, cute, and very nice. But the kiss just wasn't there, for a variety of reasons. Maybe they were too soft or too messy or too whatever.
"Can you live with it?" Basket Case asked when I lamented recently about one in particular.
No.
There is so much in a kiss, so much truth of a person in how they move their mouth against yours. Floppy, wet, forceful? Too slow or too fast? Chronic bad breath? Do they touch your face or bend you into their kiss, rather than meeting you halfway? Do they ever let you take the lead? Eyes open or tightly closed?
In my life, the ones who've done it right, right for me, are the ones who've been least able to meet my expectations, even when I've lowered them in compromise. If they can make me breathless with their kiss, they will eventually knock the breath out of me completely.
It's not about kissing frogs to find my prince. He doesn't exist. And even if he did, I'd be too busy with the frog in the crown, just because his kiss could fool me.
“Magical sex does not always show up attached to the right man. When this person and his magical sex get too ‘expensive’—too many tears, blues, lonesomeness, too often feeling angry and taken for granted, the pain outweighing the pleasure—the magic man will have to go.” - Helen Gurley Brown http://www.cosmopolitan.com/celebrity/exclusive/ten-sex-tips-from-helen-gurley-brown?src=spr_TWITTER&spr_id=1440_19582355
Posted by: Growler | Tuesday, August 13, 2013 at 07:39 PM