69. Dating & Decisions

As I’m sure you remember fondly, the last post was all about sacrificing things that we genuinely want in life, for things that make us look impressive instead.

This got me thinking about some of the wider tension points & contradictions in life, as I do think it’s kinda common to want things that are at odds with each other.  

For example, to:

• Be content/grateful for what we’ve already got, but to also have the ambition/drive to achieve more 

• Have a stress-free life, but also to attain some semblance of success

• Have a solid routine and some sort of stability, but also to have a range of exciting new experiences 

• To have some degree of resilience, but also not to go through a load of hardships  

• To fit in with a group, but also to be our authentically weird selves

And so on.

Navigating these competing wants, and getting the balance right between the two is something that I don't always find to be that easy.

And to delve into new waters on this site, I don’t think this is just limited to ourselves, but also something that can pop up when looking for a partner.

Something I’ve been thinking about recently is how often people are attracted to the outcomes of behaviours they don’t like.

For example, it can be common to be attracted to:

• People who are in “great shape”, but not to someone who spends their life in the gym

• People who make a lot of money, but not to someone who can’t switch off from work

• People who have got a load of friends, but not to someone who’s always got other plans 

• People who are charismatic, but not to someone who looks like they’re flirting with everyone

And so on. 

We like the result, we don’t necessarily like the behaviour that led to the result.

Though naturally, we can’t always have one without the other.

On this, I recently heard someone say “Getting married is just choosing one person's set of faults over another person's”.

I like that. It's less Disney, and more real.

It’s a very similar idea to one that I massively overuse on this site “There are no perfect solutions, only trade-offs”. 

It's why, and I’m probably about to sound unbelievably cynical, I think the whole perfect relationship (or job, or home, or life in general) is a load of nonsense.

If anything, chasing that can be counter-productive, as it can set completely unrealistic expectations. And as we know, unattainable expectations = inevitable disappointment. 

As such, I do think decisions in general are possibly less about how much we enjoy the upsides (naturally they’re going to be good), and more about how much we can tolerate the inevitable downsides... 

And on that point, I can no longer tolerate the downsides of trying to find a good way to wrap up this post, so we’ll just end it there.