I want to take a moment to discuss an interesting point raised by one of my blog readers, Neil commented that my face could pretty much like anyone else's face if I just gave myself a few hours of self-cognitive behavioural therapy, now I don't know about you but to me that's kind of admitting defeat, ergo, I can't find anyone's face I like so I'll just train myself to like anyone's face and isn't being utterly attracted to someone one of the most exciting parts of meeting another person of the opposite sex?
In the virtually perfect relationship (there's no such thing as perfect, remember) this is what you get, you have attraction plus friendship plus X and X is the part that you can't define, the attraction and hormones will wear off, the friendship will remain but the X part, well that's the glue that is going to keep you together for the years to come. I think the X is the spark you can't define and it's almost an evolutionary process which matches us only to a certain limited number of individuals, if Neil is right and you can change that to widen the field then I guess that's great in some respects but hell, I don't think I want to like everyone, I want to like the people I'm meant to like, it's inside me like my genetic code, I want to find a whole heap of X, I want to find so much X I am drowning in X.
When Plato said we spend the whole of our lives searching for our equal and opposite whole I don't think he was thinking that you could retrain your thought processes. I'm a great believer in the fact that all love is the pursuit of the whole. I, however, don't believe that there's just one soulmate for everyone, if I did, then basically I've had my turn and I'm screwed!
I think we all potentially have a handful of soulmates out there in the world and I do think we are drawn to each other and eventually, we find them or they find us but we have to believe strongly in this for it to happen, what I and many others do is try to force this by actively looking and the reason for this, of course, is because of our sensitive hearts and the fear of loneliness and being alone. We constantly put forward what we want and then we settle, we make too many compromises and before you know it we are trapped in ever unsuitable relationships, something I know I did in my first marriage. In my second I do think we were soulmates at least for a while and our beautiful daughters are proof of that.
I'm not sure how I get to the point of being completely ok on my own but I do know that for each day I spend as a singleton I get better about keeping my own company, the more I fill my life with interesting people and creative work and pastimes the less I feel like I need to have someone of the opposite sex to fulfil the missing parts, like my friend Kelly says, she is the whole person, she doesn't need someone else to complete her, Kelly is a very wise woman, happy to be single and you know what I salute her, for me though I just have to get up each day, look at myself in the mirror and tell myself I'm good enough, I'm better now in my own company than I have ever been, in fact, some days like today I'd make the perfect professional hermit, as long as I have my dog, a pile of musicals, a nice environment with plentiful cups of tea (and of course HD TV and surround sound) then I'm a happy bunny, everything else I need I get from my closest friends anyway!
So while I am sure that there's a creative bohemian man out there for me somewhere, I am prepared to wait and not settle until I find him because as I have always said, you should never settle for anything less than your type of perfect, so, sorry Neil, but I won't be trying to retrain my brain for anyone, anytime soon.
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