We Can Still Have It All

This post has been inspired by a twitter conversation the girls had recently. I needed to blog about this to fully weigh in on the situation.

friend 1:
Once you define your ideal significant other, it's pretty hard to settle for anything less.

me:
effing word hole! thats why the girls shouldnt give us crap gosh! [LOL I love how I try to be cool]

friend 2:
AND THAATT IS WHYYY... HAHAH I hope your "ideals" are flexible...

friend 3:
don't settle for anything less but also be open to other things. Don't look for perfect because it doesn't exist.

I must beg to differ. I've said this many times, but I absolutely, positively believe that perfect exists. It exists for you. It exists for me. But perfect exists for us in different ways. What I look for in perfect, what I consider perfect, what I need for perfect clearly pertains only to me. What you consider perfect is constructed based on your needs, wants, and desires. Thus, I don't think anyone should measure perfect based on someone else's model.

And since your idea of perfect pertains specifically to yourself, you should never, ever, ever, compromise. And that includes settling. Because that means you are devaluing something that you inherently value.

It's like saying, well, my faith and relationship in God is really important to me and is something I value, so ideally, the person I'm with should value their relationship with God as well. But when upon meeting someone you really like, you come to find out they are an agnostic--but you really like them, so you compromise on that point in order to stay with that person.

Or, you can say that you really value your relationship with your family, but find someone who has completely turned their back on their family and only cares about what they are doing.

Or, you take a strong stance against drug use. Or gambling. Or smoking. Do you compromise these things because the person you like does them?

Personally, I don't understand this. Why should you set a standard for yourself, then excuse it in the behavior in another person? Why should I make allowances for certain things that I would never allow for myself? Also, if I care about something deeply, why would I compromise that in the future boyfriend/fiance/husband? That doesn't make sense.

I am, of course, talking about bigger issues. Hair color, height, weight, favorite types of music, favorite movies---all of those things, I think, can absolutely be compromised. And, with things likes drugs, gambling, smoking--all habit forming--I think this becomes a problem when it becomes a problem. If they happened to steal a comic book--or even tore pages out of a Tiger Beat when they were 12 because it had colored pictures of Justin Timberlake-- I'm not saying that you should just dump the person and head for the hills. No, that's crazy. What I am saying is that if they are drinking excessively every night, or going out gambling every night... there's clearly a problem.

But going back to the question of settling. I just don't understand why someone would settle. Why would you sell yourself short? We all want to best for our girlfriends. We want them to be happy with a person who perfectly compliments them. You'd never let your good friend end up with a person that she was settling for. And if we care about our friends to such an extent, shouldn't we care for ourselves even more? Shouldn't you want the very best for yourself?

The next point I want to make is that everyone should stay with their own standards and not give into this really ambiguous, and ultimately meaningless, notion of The Perfect Guy/Girl. Here, I agree with friend 3; you can't find happiness if you are trying to find a person that fits into a mold constructed by what you think you SHOULD look for in a potential relationship. That list, that model of perfection, doesn't exist and shouldn't matter to you because that's not what you are looking for anyway.

To sum up, I just want to end with something I got from an asian drama I watched [and reason number 1 why asian dramas are so so good to watch]. No one can, nor ought to be your everything. There will always be something that just doesn't fit. Too short, too fat, too loud, not loud enough, too young, too old, weird job, weird friends...etc etc etc. So pick the things you can't live without, and let everything else fall away. The things you can't live without, those are the things that make up your perfection, and you should never compromise them.