“What am I doing wrong?!” a friend of mine asked me yesterday with regard to her another failed attempt at scoring a date with a guy she has a crush on.
Now, of course, I have a boyfriend so I am qualified to answer all queries on getting and keeping men. I’m like a professional at relationships.
OK, so both she and I and you know that’s not true, but I know so many coupled up people who would take this rhetorical question — which actually just calls for some soothing about how awesome your friend is and how she just hasn’t met a guy cool enough for her yet — and use it as an opportunity to share their extensive knowledge on “how to be a winner at relationships”.
One of my biggest bugbears is people in relationships asking others why they are single. It’s as if they think the only goal of the single person is to get in a relationship — any relationship — as soon as possible. As we all know, single people just spend their evenings crying into their pillows about why their life is so sad and how everything would be magical and perfect if they had a partner.
But, seriously, while it’s true that most single people I know would like to meet someone special, there is a huge difference between wanting to meet someone special and wanting to meet just anyone who’ll agree to a relationship. Actually, if I think about it, there aren’t that many people in relationships that I envy.
Even so, people in those very relationships gave me the most terrible advice when I was single, including not being “too picky” (shudder to think what the alternative is), not being “too hard on men” (ha ha ha) and not “dating too many men” (get back to the Victorian era, please). One of the women who told me this is in a relationship with a guy who openly swears at her and calls her names in front of her friends. My advice to her would be to become single ASAP. I’ve been in a relationship like that and I guarantee it’s more fun to be single and picky.
I know this is a bit controversial, but being in a relationship doesn’t mean you have found meaning to your life. Being in a relationship also doesn’t necessarily mean you are happier or that you have discovered how to do something right. I wasn’t doing things wrong before, I was just being myself. It’s true that a lot of guys aren’t into that, but seeing as my personality is a non-negotiable, I just have to accept that it takes me some time to find someone I am compatible with.
My boyfriend is one of those rare gems who doesn’t care that I am an overthinker or that I am disorganised or that I don’t get phased by big stuff (which I probably should do), but get really upset by ridiculous stuff, such as slow walkers.
In turn, I can deal with his big strops over nothing, the fact that he is the vainest man I have ever met and that he has about as much interest in my fitness endeavours as I do his obsession with Manchester United. I didn’t meet him because I stopped being picky or started dressing differently or anything like that. I met him because, by chance, we were at the same gallery opening one night and we got on really well. I could just have easily not gone and not met him and still be receiving unwanted advice on how terrible I am at meeting men.
There isn’t a magic formula to finding requited love, and anyone who tells you to change something or hide something about your personality in order to find it, is talking out of their bottom.
Our only choice is to be ourselves and see what happens. And, whatever anyone says, being in a relationship is just like a career change; it’s not inherently better and, even if it is, it’s not like you have just got the keys to happily ever after, so my advice to all the smug coupled-up people out there is: quit doling out advice as if you are Deepak Chopra, relationships aren’t a maths formula, so stop trying to apply theories to them.
