Mr Right Now?

A very dear friend of mine lent me a book recently, a book that was to be found in most women’s hand bags during the nineties and almost without exception then forced onto the said woman’s significant other who would look at it with scorn and distrust but told “You have to read this”. The book became a best seller, primarily to women who longed for answers to relationship questions that have spanned the decades. According to the authors they had the answers, that Man and Woman are different, so different in fact that they could have come from separate planets, Men from Mars and Women from Venus and that over time we had forgotten just how different we are to one another, each expecting things and reactions from one another as we would expect them to react if it was us. That this manual will translate each others reactions, subtle hints, and language and suggest or inform as to why we behave the way we do.

Is my friend trying to tell me something?

She knows me well and obviously being a woman has picked up on the fact that maybe the reason I am alone is that I have not recognised these differences yet? Every relationship I have ever had has inevitably failed or else I would not be alone but happily married or at least married. But is a marriage without love a success? I would say not, love is surely the reason to be with someone. I have always believed that it is better to be alone for the right reasons than to be with someone for the wrong ones and I believed that women felt the same. And yet today I read an article in a newspaper penned by a woman who although initially felt the same and surmised that she would only ever marry for love that now as she grew older and felt that Mr Right just didn’t exist that she would settle for Mr He’ll Do. She was not much older than myself and confessed to being with someone she did not love, that she was just settling for. I don’t ever want to be someone that someone is just settling for.
I believe in love and that as Plato first suggested that each and every one of us has a soul mate, that there is that one special person that will complete us, we are one half of a pair separated. I don’t want to be paired with someone that just makes out to be my other half, that is just glossing over the parts that don’t quite match; relationships are hard enough without having to pretend how you feel about your partner. I’m sure we can all think of a couple in our lives that are unhappy and in a non-fruitful relationship, that they have just settled for someone, which offers the reality that if there is just that one special person for each of us that our soul mate could have already settled for someone else. This inescapably means that some of us are destined to live this life alone or to just settle for someone.

There is a fairly well know advert that states we should not hang around waiting for Fate and Cupid, that they guarantee finding you love within six months. Now I’m sure this is possible, Fate and Cupid could play a part in this dating service that will bring you together with your soul mate, after all it is just a matter of finding them which will never happen if you just stay at home so it serves its purpose of getting singles to go out and meet. But how many of those that use the service decides to just settle for someone, to find either Mr or Miss They’ll Do instead of Mr or Miss Right?

Whether in a relationship or not we constantly, man and woman endeavour to make ourselves more attractive to the opposite sex. We dress in clothes that we do not necessarily feel comfortable in but that we think the opposite sex will find attractive. We apply make-up to highlight and disguise, we spray and splash fragrances onto our bodies that we hope will entice. We constantly try to make ourselves that little bit more attractive to our partner, or to those of us that are still looking, our prospective partner.

Life is a journey that I don’t believe is meant to be travelled alone, life brings obstacles and situations that are better copped with as a team, however we need to recognise that part of this journey is to be taken alone and that somewhere along the way our paths will intertwine with each other bringing you into other peoples lives and that these paths will either only meet for the briefest of moments or continue together. I am on my path and hope that one day it will meet with another but only with another that is meant to be, not someone that has just taken a detour.
My soul mate is out there somewhere and hopefully she has not already decided that I am too elusive to find and has settled for someone else, that she believes, as I do and is on her path waiting for us to meet.

I don’t believe in fairy tale endings, life can be harsh. I do believe in what will be will be. So if that means my path is a single track for longer than so be it. I have made mistakes in the past, and if they have taught me anything it is that I would rather travel alone and wait for that special someone than just travel with someone for the sake of not being alone.

No one ever said it would be easy, some journeys are tougher than others but I will endure, I will continue to press forward and overcome that which is placed in my way.