Love Reflections: Silly Standards

Since Valentine’s Day is today, and because I binge-watched too many dramas in quarantine, I thought it would be fun to reflect a little on love and relationships. The older I get, the sappier and more sentimental I get, and these dramas don’t help. I know they’re not realistic; I know they are exaggerated representations of relationships; I know they take all the good qualities of partners and love, and get rid of all the bad things; I know they’re all sugar, spice, and everything nice. But, I like them. I think despite all their faults, these dramas can show a really sweet and refreshing take on love and relationships. The focus of the dramas I generally watch isn’t solely sex appeal and physical attraction. There’s a focus on what we all really want in our love stories: we want someone to willingly choose us; we want someone, through thick and thin, to be loyal to us; we want someone to see our less than perfect side, but love and respect us anyway; we want someone to see our value, even when no one else does; we want someone to be honest and respectful with us; we want someone to see us as the most precious thing in their life; and we want someone to grow old with, to do life with. Love is a conscious choice, it’s sacrificial; and, it’s not something everyone truly gets to see and experience all the time. That’s why I like these cheesy dramas—they can be a little break from the disappointing reality of the modern dating scene.

You have to be careful, though. Sometimes it’s easy to forget that these dramas are fiction. It’s easy to get wrapped up in “why can’t I find a guy like that?”, “where have all the good men gone?”, and “why can’t I find someone to wait for me for 1000 years?” It’s easy to get wrapped up in something that doesn’t actually exist. It’s easy to forget that dramas aren’t documentaries on relationships, and it becomes easy to mould our standards, as well as our expectations for relationships and love, to fit the scripts of the shows we watch.

I’m really glad I didn’t watch these dramas when I was younger. It would have set me up for even more failure in the dating department. Now that I’m older, I am able to sift through the fluff more than when I was in my late teens and throughout my early 20s. The older you get, the more you realize certain things don’t, or shouldn’t, matter in relationships, you realize that what was desirable when you were in your early 20s is not that important when you’re in your late 20s and beyond. The older you get, the more you realize that what you considered to be “standards” or “non-negotiables” are really not standards, and are a lot more negotiable than what you thought.

The older you get, the more you mature and experience life, the more you are able to figure out what’s really important long-term. The older you get you realize your young self’s “standards” were just superficial preferences designed to, as it were, get your juices flowing. The older you get the more you realize what you want is not what you need…Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it), I had to learn that the hard way.

Growing up, my sister and I didn’t have the power of dramas to influence our romantic decisions. It probably would have been much easier if we were only under the influence of dramas. Instead, we had something much more dramatic, much more unrealistic, and much more toxic. We had “the list”.

Growing up, be it at home or at church, my sister and I were always told to come up with a list of what we wanted in our future husbands. In theory, that’s not the worst advice; we need to set up healthy, reasonable, and realistic boundaries and expectations for ourselves and for the people we bring into our circle. In practice, however, this advice set us, and other young people, up for failure. Why? For many reasons; but, generally, because young people don’t understand the complexities of life, or of adult decisions and relationships; and, also because young people value and prioritize different, and often unimportant, things.

At church, the Sunday school leaders told us to come up with a checklist, and to never deviate from that list--that if a man didn’t check off all the blocks, then he wasn’t the one for you. In fact, if he didn’t meet every requirement you had of him, then not only was he not the one God had for you, he wasn’t even worthy of your time.

At home, my mom always told us to be very specific with what we wanted in a future partner. She frequently told us about her own experience as a young woman. When she was younger and was praying about who she would marry, one thing she asked God for was someone who loved music. She definitely got that, my dad loves any and all types of music. However, what she meant, she told us, was someone who could play an instrument and could sing. My dad plays a mean air guitar, but he’s definitely not selling out stadiums any time soon--and, my mom wouldn’t change that. She loves the bare bones of my dad, and she wouldn’t change anything about him; but, as she says, she wants us to be aware of the power of praying specifically, or not specifically.

For a long time, I believed what the women at church and what my mom told me. I made ridiculously long and specific lists--I had specific eye colour, height, ages, body types, professions, languages, degrees, passions, goals, and definitions of what I, as a young, inexperienced young adult, thought intelligence, humour, and motivation was. In my young, naive, misguided mind, I figured the only person I would be equally matched with was the male version of me--I figured the only way I could be happy in a relationship was if my future partner and I had the exact same motivation, drives, purpose, passion, career, and taste in movies, music, clothes, sports, etc.

It sounds incredibly ridiculous and immature now; but, at the time, I thought I was doing what was religiously, spiritually, physically, sexually, mentally, and emotionally right for me. In my mind, I was just doing what I was taught. I made a list, I checked it twice, and I found out who was naughty or nice.

I thought the list was working for me for a while. I thought I had my standards, I thought I had my expectations, and I thought I was being fair. I thought the problem I was having in relationships wasn’t me and what I was requiring of people, but the men I was interacting with. I figured, since the men I was getting close to didn’t check off every box then it was God’s way of saying they weren’t the one for me. So, I continued to look for someone that would meet every requirement/standard my young self thought was important.

I prayed that I would meet that “perfect” someone, because how could I be happy otherwise? So, God called my bluff. He gave me exactly what I said I wanted. My third year of college I met someone that checked off every block I had. I finally met a man that met every “standard”, every requirement I had. From the top of his head to the soles of his feet, he was perfect. He was handsome, tall, funny, sarcastic, witty, respectful, intelligent, talented, passionate, masculine, and athletic. He was a medic in the Army. I grew up in the Army, so being around him was like always having a piece of home with me. He was studying to be a doctor, which would have made my mother incredibly happy. He was bilingual, loved to dance, and could cook. He was a singer and drummer in a band. He had tattoos, a great smile, a beard, and knew how to fill out a pair of jeans. From the very first day, I fell hard. No one else existed after I met him. He checked off every single box, and then some. What could go wrong?

Everything… Everything could, and did, go wrong.

To put it melodramatically: through my telescope, I could only see one star; and, through that one star, I could understand the whole universe. But, the man I thought was “the One”, the love of my life, even with the entire universe in front of him, even with the answer to every question in front of him, couldn’t understand what made his heart beat.

His indifference, his misunderstanding, his ignorance, whatever you want to call it, became very apparent, very quickly. I put myself through the worst four years of my life because I thought if he met every requirement on my list, then maybe I should tolerate some of his negative habits. He met what I thought was an ideal partner, so maybe I should tolerate him jerking me around, maybe I should tolerate him dropping me when something shinier caught his attention, maybe I should excuse the mind games, maybe I should excuse the inconsistency, maybe I should tolerate him making fun of me, maybe I should tolerate walking on eggshells. I thought if I was interesting enough, if I was sexual enough, if I was thin enough, if I was pretty enough, if I helped him reach his potential, if I helped him understand how amazing he was, if I made sure other people know how great he was, and if I just loved him enough, then he could love me back.

I was told that if a man met all of my requirements then it meant he was the right man, the “One”, the person God had for me. If that’s true, then shouldn’t I stick it out for just a little bit?

If the people at church, if my teachers, if my mom, if all the experienced adults were telling me to make these lists of what I wanted, then why wasn’t it working? If I wasn’t supposed to deviate from my list, why was I so miserable? If it was God bringing me someone who met every single desire of my heart, then why did I feel so pathetic and lonely? If it was destiny, why was I so willing to try to force a relationship to happen? If what I was doing was right, why was I so willing to change myself for the worse?

Simply, love doesn’t work the way I was trying to make it work. Just because I thought this guy was my type and was “the One” for me doesn’t mean I was his type or “the One” for him. You can’t push someone to love, respect, and cherish you just because you love, respect, and cherish them. You can’t love someone enough to make them change. What I was looking for with all the requirements I had was not love. What does a specific profession, height, eye colour, academic degree, athletic ability, fashion sense, playing an instrument, or music taste have to do with love? Absolutely nothing. What does being handsome, muscular, witty, or funny really have to do with love? Not much. All of the things I wanted in a man weren’t bad in themselves—there’s nothing wrong with wanting to be physically, sexually, mentally, intellectually, and emotionally attracted to your partner; the problem, however, is that I made those superficial, meaningless things the most important things in my partner. The problem was I was willing to sacrifice myself—my own mental, spiritual, physical, sexual, emotional, and intellectual well-being—for someone who truly didn’t care about me (despite what he said), for someone who thought I was replaceable, for someone who would be fine with never seeing or talking to me again, for someone who was comfortable with hurting me over and over again, for someone who will forget I was ever present in their life.

Love is not something that can be put on a timetable, it’s not something that can be regulated, or limited. Love is not something easy, it’s not something superficial, and it’s not something selfish. Superficial “standards”—height, eye colour, professions, extracurricular activities, body shape, socioeconomic status, etc.—are not standards, and they’re everything love is not. Superficial “standards” turn people from individuals, human beings with needs, wants, goals, ambitions, and purpose, to objects of desire, playthings to use and throw away when they’re no longer fun. Only having superficial “standards” when finding a partner is stunting, as well as damaging to everyone involved. You limit life, your experiences, and miss out on meaningful relationships when you focus solely on superficial “standards”. There is no inherent correlation between perceived or actual physical attractiveness, sexual prowess, talent, education level, intelligence, socioeconomic status, and/or hobbies to how much a person is worth being loved, respected, and cherished by another person. There is no inherent correlation between perceived or actual physical attractiveness, sexual prowess, talent, education level, intelligence, socioeconomic status, and/or hobbies to how much a person is capable of loving, respecting, and cherishing another person.

It’s easy to forget the importance, complexity, and necessity of loving and being loved. But, it’s worth remembering. Love isn’t something easy or something that comes completely naturally. Love isn’t always neat and tidy. Love can be really uncomfortable. Love is self-sacrificing. Love is an active choice that has to be made every day. Love isn’t something that can be based solely on what’s here today and gone tomorrow.

That’s why I like dramas. Despite all their melodrama, cheesy-ness, and unrealistic tendencies, they can be a great reminder on how to love: completely, freely, unconditionally, selflessly, and without regard to self-preservation or comfort.

Since Valentine’s Day is the day of love, the right kind of love, there’s no better day to remember why and how to love. There’s no better day to remember to throw away the meaningless, unimportant, superficial things we often focus on when it comes to relationships and love. There’s no better day to remember to focus on what makes everyone individual and worthy of love.

I hope everyone has a great Valentine’s Day, and is able to love and be loved freely, completely, selflessly, and unconditionally.