Cute post, but I want to know 1. How you figure out that you've met the person the universe has intended for you and 2. What happens after. Because there's a whole life to be lived together and it will involve dirty laundry, differences of opinion, money issues, bad moods, and other not-fun things.
First, cuteness is what I aim for, so thanks. Secondly, I suspect she wasn't actually expecting answers to these monstrous questions, but because I like Anna (and because I owe her for making fun of her music preferences), I’ll bravely take them on one at a time as if I am some sort of authority on these issues, the 26 year old singleton I am.
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Question 1. How do I know I’ve met The One?
I may be overly romantic, but I am not so overly romantic that I believe the Universe intends one person just for me. Rather, if it does so at all, it does so in moments. Everything is in constant motion. A woman will come into your life that could be totally awesome and rock your world..... for a few months. Sometimes that’s all we get.
But let’s assume that the Universe sends up some kind of invisible flares, even if temporary ones, attempting to inform us that there is a person, at least for right now, that is “The One.” How would we know it?
I think it’s not a terribly absurd notion. When a person is in love – and here I’m talking about that initial period of infatuation – everything else, and everybody else, in the Universe seems like minor, irrelevant details. This is certainly a feeling beyond mere lust.
So, I am almost tempted to go with the Romantic Comedy answer that if you are in its throes, you just know.
“If you have to ask, then...” you know the rest.
But that’s probably bull-honkey. If you don’t feel compelled to question your feelings, then it’s probably just because you are overly confident in your intuition—a personal choice to overlook details, not an objective truth.
So, for those of us who question, what exactly should we ask? Here are some ideas. Mileage will vary.
-- Where does my mind tend to go when I’m not concentrating on anything in particular? The best way I know to understand what the Universe wants from me (or what I want from the Universe) – and this applies to more than just romantic relationships – is to notice trends in my mental driftage.
-- Do I see things in her that other people fail to notice? Like what?
-- What is it that I admire most about her? Is it her boobies? Is it her miraculous intelligence? In either case, I’m probably being deceived—I’m attracted to some show of fertility or competence. If I am, that’s fine – that’s good – but The One probably requires more than that. If this is The One (at the moment), then I will probably find myself swooning over things as mundane and ordinary as her sneeze.
-- How does thinking about her make me feel? Does it bring me a warm glow? Does it bring me a profound sense of longing? A sort of lustful curiosity? If it’s any one particular feeling, then she’s probably not the moment’s One, because love is far more complicated than that. Rather, the feeling of love seems to be a powerful combination of seemingly conflicting emotions.
These are just some silly rules of thumb I pulled out of my buttocks, but maybe there’s some substance hidden in there somewhere.
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Question 2. What happens after? How do I deal with all the unsexy parts of a long-term relationship?
I’ll let you in on a little secret. This is my motto for life:
Whenever life gets you down, sex it up.
Whenever life throws a myriad of petty little unsexy things at you, just add sex. That’s what I always say. Faced with dirty laundry? No problem! Just add sex.
(I’m kidding, y’all.)
Here, I’ll let DFW say it:
The really important kind of freedom involves attention, and awareness, and discipline, and effort, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over, in myriad petty little unsexy ways, every day.
So, if you buy that (and I do), then I suppose the question is, how do we achieve attention, awareness, discipline, effort, and the ability to truly care about other people and to sacrifice for them? And for that I think there can only be one answer: By wanting to.
The alternative is trying to do things because you think you should. I don’t like the idea of doing anything for an extended period of time if I don’t have an internal drive to do it. Psychologists will tell you that the least effective goals are should goals—ones we do not out of desire but out of some warped reasoning that it is something we ought to do.
So, if you are going to get yourself thick into the throes of a “romantic” (quotes for irony) relationship, where dirty laundry and money and diaper-changing will be involved, then you better make sure that you have some pretty serious desire – or that you at least receive some pretty serious warm glows – from doing things for her with no expectation of return.
And now is when I return to my initial point about The One being temporary. What I meant by that is that the initial head-over-heel-ness is frustratingly fleeting. That doesn’t mean that the relationship needs to be. I’ve said before that I think a relationship is best thought of as an investment—not an investment in chores or favors, but an investment in time, in getting to know someone, and hopefully coming to understand them. To share a history together, to have lives intertwined, means that this is not just some detached soul that happens to share the same space and have nice boobies, but that, cliché as it may be, the two of you are in some very real sense progressively becoming part of the same whole.
I don’t mean that in a “you complete me” sense – god no, not that – but rather that you have the literal sense (illusion?) that you are no longer a lonely sailor on life’s lonely waters, because there is a fellow sailor who has agreed to an arrangement of mutual influence where the influence is so intense that the boundaries between “you” and “they” are no longer delineable.
And having that – and, more importantly, recognizing that you have that – makes the myriad petty little unsexy parts well worth it, I'd say.
