I’m undertaking a 1000-day reinvention project, blogging here daily to track my progress. In Friday Flash, I share an epiphany or aha moment from the past week.
I keep circling the idea of settling in a relationship. The advice “don’t settle!” aimed at daters makes me uncomfortable. I’ve written about it before, but I’m still chewing on it, trying to crystallize in my mind just what’s wrong with it, and what people should do (or think) instead.
When you’re warned not to settle, what this means is: don’t accept a partner who is somehow beneath you–less educated, less physically attractive, less emotionally skilled, less accomplished, less financially secure. Settling assumes a measuring stick. It depends upon comparison: this is better, this is worse. It assumes a ledger and an accounting.
Am I getting as much as I’m giving?
Does what they bring stack up against what I bring?
We don’t apply this logic everywhere. When you take a dog or cat into your life, you don’t ask whether you’re settling. You don’t measure the animals’ worth against your own. You ask a simpler, more useful question: Does this work? Does this being belong in my life as it is?
If the answer is yes, you commit. You stop shopping. You stop comparing. You accept the animal exactly as they are–quirks, limits, messes included. If the answer it no, you don’t keep them out of fear or pride. You find another arrangement, however painful that might be. The question isn’t whether the pet is good enough for you. It’s whether the fit between you and the pet is right.
What if daters approached romantic relationships the same way — not with less discernment, but with a different kind. Not ranking or optimizing or quietly auditing the balance sheet of one partner’s traits against the other’s.
Instead, asking a yes-or-no question: is this the relationship I want to be in?
If yes – then choose it fully, commit to it, without comparison, without resentment, without a background fantasy that there’s something — someone — better out there.
If no, let it go.
That doesn’t mean you should tolerate harm or ignore real incompatibilities. In fact, those are reasons you could say an unequivocal no to a relationship. It means stepping out of the market logic that makes romance into a kind of competitive game.
I don’t think that the danger is in settling. The danger is in choosing from a place of keeping score rather than assessing whether this person and this relationship works for you.