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When I was seventeen, my sister said these words to me: “I mean, you look good on paper.”
We were discussing the topic of relationships, as we often do, and at one point in the conversation, she told me, “When someone actually gets to know you, that’s when it starts to not work out.” But, I do look good on paper.
Which, to her credit, is true: I write poetry. I play guitar. If you threw me into a B-list romantic comedy, I’d be playing “the sensitive guy.” I’m a good listener. I remember details. I don’t eat the french fries off your plate when I wine and dine you at Chili’s. But that’s part of the problem: romantic movies and TV shows have led us to believe that if you meet a certain list of criteria — a certain checklist, if you will — then you’ll be able to meet, and end up with, “the One.” And that’s where we all go wrong.
If you’ve paid any attention to these stories that keep getting rehashed and thrown in our faces, you know the story goes a little like this: Person A develops a crush on Person B, whether they’re friends or Person A is loving from afar. The two eventually get to know each other better — but oh, in an M. Night Shyamalan twist, Person B is already interested, or with, someone else: you know, the stereotypically hot cheerleader, or quarterback, or what have you. Person A is overlooked, even though they have the generally desired qualities of being funny, being a shoulder to lean on, and understanding Person B and relating to Person B. And by some miraculous twist of the plot, like in a Taylor Swift music video, the T-shirt-wearing Person A wins over the Romeo (or Juliet), and their short-skirt (or, erm, muscle-shirt)-wearing former love-interest gets kicked to the side.
And while it’s ridiculous to classify everyone into such rigid categories, the message that these stories give us is that there are certain types of people who find “the One” and win them over. At one point, it’s the confident, popular and crazily attractive type. At other points, it’s the more “unnoticed,” awkward-but-lovable Person A (like the quiet girl whose desirability increases tenfold once she takes off her glasses — think “She’s All That”). And the most egregious example is of the invincible, charming, impeccable prince who comes to rescue the Damsel in Distress. (Not sure how many girls these days have been “in Distress,” but it seems outdated.)
But that’s the thing: dating, or finding someone, is not about how many traits you can cross off a checklist. In good shape? Great sense of humor? Pet lover? Credit score above 800? You could be rich-ass Tom Brady and old-school fearless like some Disney character, and still have trouble finding the One. Famed romantic and “The Notebook” author Nicholas Sparks and his wife recently separated. Let that sink in.
In discussing the struggle of finding the right person, we also have to question part of the idea itself — the “One True Love” idea so constantly put into our heads as children. The idea that you could only “rightly” love one person is crazy — there’s 7 billion people in the world. Think about it. If there were only one right person for someone in Korea, and that one person lived in Brazil, we’d all be pretty screwed. Life is messy — we’re all multifaceted, and we fall in love with multiple people (sometimes at once — “The Notebook” being the most popular example). But who’s to say that if Allie never met Noah, she wouldn’t have been perfectly happy with Lon? Whether something works out depends on the circumstance of the situation, but what should be clear is that there isn’t just “One” person out there for everyone. There could be a handful.
Psychologically, there’s no sure-fire mix of traits that ensure compatibility with anyone — it’s all about how two people interact, and that’s hard to predict. You have to figure out what works for you, and that’s all about trial and error, like so many other things in life. Everyone is different, and if you spend your time trying to mold yourself to fit some script of “irresistible”, or contorting yourself to be what you think your crush wants, you’re doing nothing more than pivoting to a new potential mix of singles. And in the process, you might be changing the things that make you who you are — things that someone else might have adored about you.
With all this said, we have to accept that finding the one (lowercase “O,” people) is going to take some work. There’s a lot of possibility out there, but it isn’t easy, and it isn’t painless. Some aspect of fate might play a role in things, but you still have to get the ball rolling. Talk to that girl who sits next to you in class. Ask for that bartender’s number who you always seem to see. Take the leap with a friend you’ve had your eye on — who’s to say it won’t work? And even if things seem to keep going wrong day after day, year after year, person after person, don’t get discouraged. We may have been raised to fetishize love at first sight (or, you know, at first Tinder message), but it’s gonna take more than that to find something that lasts. And that means staying persistent.
The bottom line is that there isn’t a Rapunzel sitting in a tower somewhere waiting for you to arrive (or a more gender-neutral version of that scenario, if there is one). It’s more like in those Super Mario games — you know, where Mario busts his ass to get to his woman and then gets hit with the knowledge that “his princess is in another castle.” We may not have crowns and castles these days, but if we must have a storybook metaphor for finding someone, let it be something like that: you’re gonna have to jump through a lot of hoops and go through a lot of crap, but that right person is out there. And if this chronically single writer has learned anything about romance, it’s that love is strange. It’s not reducible to a formula, and it isn’t predictable. It’s something that you have to jump into, and it’s a long way down. But one of these days, you’re gonna land in the right place. Don’t give up before you get there.
Contact Opinion Section Editor Ellis Arnold at ellis.arnold@colorado.edu.
