The Great Quest for the Mediocre

I am not a love guru by any stretch of the imagination. So do yourself a favor and take everything I say with a grain of salt, and also a shot of hard liquor if it suits your taste. With that disclaimer out of the way I will say this; STOP LOOKING FOR LOVE! Love is kind of like a lost TV remote, you are only going to find it when you are not really looking for it; most likely when you have too many things going on to even care to find it. The kids are late for the bus, there is oatmeal on the kitchen floor, the cat has a urinary tract infection and you are struggling to stuff yourself into a pair of jeans that you could have sworn fit last week; and then you stub your toe on the fucking thing as you hobble past the dishwasher. Who the hell puts the remote under the dishwasher? It's the same guy who puts your soul mate in your boyfriend's fantasy football league or in your wife's book club, or behind the counter at the coffee shop taking your order when you haven't shaved for three days or worked out for eight months. Yea that guy's an asshole, but he never takes a day off.

Now before you go and say, "soul mate? You believe in soul mates?" No, I don't, but I do believe that some people are better for you than others. The problem is that most of us don't wait for that person to come around. We LOOK for relationships when we are single, and that's a terrible idea, you fool. You are just setting everyone up for delayed failure. What I mean by that is that when you are actively searching for that "special" someone, you are far too likely to overlook things that should tell you to pass to the next one. I'm talking about deal breakers. We all have them, but the more desperate you get, the more deal breakers you will let slip through the cracks until you settle on someone that would normally be a walking billboard for the phrase "no, thank you." Then about six months in, after the new-love smell wears off and when the bubbly fits of joy that come with laying eyes on each other start losing their bubble, you are then stuck getting to know each other. Oh, shit.

This is where most couples fail. If the person with whom you have ended up came to you at a time when all you wanted was someone to be with, then the chances that you are going to grow more fond of this person with the passage of time are very slim. It's not to say that there is anything wrong with wanting someone in your life. Everyone gets lonely, but don't compromise what you want in a person just so that you can have somebody in your life. There are so many people out there that there is no reason to constantly be searching for your next chance at love. And if you need to satisfy your primal urges and don't want to take home floozies or douchebags from the bar, then what's wrong with a good old-fashioned fuck buddy? Some people get uptight about that, but isn't it nice to have a friend that you know and trust whom you can also fuck from time to time? Just as long as things don't become "complicated." FB's need to be on the same page emotionally if nobody is going to get hurt.

Like I said at the beginning of this post, I'm no expert in the field of love and romance; but the whole experience is so different from case to case that I don't believe that the "experts" can be truly clairvoyant on the subject either. In my humble and unschooled opinion, the only thing that seems to matter outside of the obvious initial attraction is honesty.You need to be able to speak truth, and even more, you need to be ready to hear it. If you are going to give part of your life to someone else, you better make sure that you can honestly be yourself with that person. If you have to hide a portion of your personality from someone, you are not with the right someone.

I'm not exactly sure what makes me want to post this type of advice here. I guess I'm sick of seeing everyone around me live out the same pattern of systematic disappointment over and over again. Stop adapting your standards in order to make people fit. Your standards are there for a reason and there are plenty of people who fit them. Your chances of finding them; meh, you have a better chance of catching a winning lottery ticket out of the bolt of lightning that strikes and kills a shark just as it is about to drag you underwater.