‘The one’ is just not that into you

A few years back there was a toxic relationship self-help book called ‘he’s just not that into you’. Its message to young women could be summarised as ‘if he doesn’t call you three times a day, let him go—he’s just not that into you’.

Aside from the fact that if someone called me three times a day I would consider them needy and probably crazy, this sentiment is indicative of a more dangerous trend towards wanting everything in our relationships to be 100 per cent perfect.

Everything to do with our life partner must be perfect, from the initial encounter through the first kiss to the life lived happily ever after. Ideally the initial encounter will even have a touch of serendipity, and of course our partners will have no lingering feelings for anyone else. We will coincide and synthesise like well beaten eggs.  

It doesn’t take a psychiatrist to see this is silly and a little neurotic. Humans are multi-faceted creatures; we need a diversity of things. The notion that we can be perfectly complemented by another human is ludicrous. We cannot play all roles and we will always think about what is lacking from our current situation.

I am not saying that monogamy is a myth or that you can’t be happy with just one person. Of course you can. But only in the sense that with an ideal partner you don’t need anything extra. You might still have desires and fantasies. The fulfillment of these desires is unnecessary for your life, but they persist.

So the ideal partner is nonetheless something very special. What is the big difference between the way I describe them and the way ‘he’s just not that into you’ does?

The crucial difference is that in accepting relationships are never ‘perfect’ you acknowledge life will throw you curveballs. You recognise that no matter how good you have it and how many precautions you take there will always be hiccups. In so doing you lay the foundations for a rational approach to solving any problems that may arise.

When your partner gets an amazing job offer in a faraway place, or the kids really start to drag on the relationship, or one of you develops sexual dysfunction, or whatever else might cause friction, you are prepared to ‘make it work’. You can use reason to ease the issues.  

But if you expect everything to be perfect and effortless then you are likely to become hysterical when confronted with problems. You may sweep them under the rug or simply hope that ‘love will find a way’. You will be disinclined to recognise that a problem even exists because then your relationship is no longer perfect. Everything will constitute a deal-breaker.

We would all like our lives to be fairytales but we constantly forget that all fairytales involve a fair measure of adversity and struggle. It is precisely the overcoming of these obstacles that makes the story magical.