Settling?

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edamame721

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Two more of my cousins just got married. Being older and perpetually single, I'm starting again to wonder if I should just settle for anyone who treats me well. I know I'm not in a good frame of mind to be thinking this.

How do you stop yourself from getting out of the mindset of settling? Do you have regrets if you did?
 
I've thought about that myself sometimes but then I look around me at my family and many of my aunts, uncles, and cousins who do not have very good track records. Only one aunt and one uncle ever stayed married to one person until their wife/husband passed away. My other aunt and uncle have been married several times. I have one cousin who is still married to her first husband, others are either divorced or on second, third, maybe even forth marriages. My mom isn't a very good example either, she kind of picks the wrong kind of guys and has never been married. Though she's been very happen having never been married. My grand parent's didn't last together either. So then I think, is settling worth it then?

But then who knows, you might end up settling with the right person who makes you very happy and luck out that way. Life's a crap shoot and you never know which way the dice are going to roll.
 
Maybe you should look at your motives and where you stand right now.

You're obviously not happy and are looking for a salve. You won't find that in someone else, whether you are "settling" or not. That is also dishonest with yourself and the potential partner. Can you imagine how they will feel when they find out?

We tend to look at the grass on the other side of the fence, if we have none.. even brown and dry grass looks better than nothing.

The fact of the matter is you can grow that grass yourself. You can be happy without dating someone.. that there will attract people. A smile, particularly a cheeky one is a great way to meet people.
 
What if you find someone in your "settling" idea, and then it turns out to not be settling at all?
 
VanillaCreme said:
What if you find someone in your "settling" idea, and then it turns out to not be settling at all?

Every time you have a fight or disagreement, your mind will say "This is what you get for settling".

There's also a chance that by applying that bandaid solution and giving yourself a temporary happiness that you will really find someone appropriate.. then what do you do? Break someone elses heart because you found someone better?

The concept of settling is to accept someone you know is not ideal. You already know there's going to be problems. To settle is to degrade yourself, betray your self respect, lie to them and essentially, give up. For what? Happiness? You can't find it that way. It's doomed to failure.

If indeed the person IS ideal for you, there is nothing lost by being friends until you discover that they may be ideal. At least then you can't be left with any niggling doubts or problems that will come up later.

A basic risk analysis says to not risk it. A lot to lose and only short term, temporary gain.

Be happy on your own and you will attract someone who is good for you and being happy makes you good for them. Misery and desperation attract like, and believe me, that's a recipe for disaster.
 
Digitales said:
Be happy on your own and you will attract someone who is good for you and being happy makes you good for them. Misery and desperation attract like, and believe me, that's a recipe for disaster.

I definitely can agree with that, even if it's easier said than done to be happy on your own. But do you think there's ever a chance that it will just work out? I can't really explain what I'm trying to ask, but it's like thinking you won't like a certain type of food, then you try it, and it ends up being something you enjoy. I think there's always a chance - no matter how slim - that settling could turn out to be something more.

I suppose I'm just trying to look at it from a positive angle. No idea why though. I don't think anyone should just "settle" in much of anything.
 
VanillaCreme said:
I definitely can agree with that, even if it's easier said than done to be happy on your own. But do you think there's ever a chance that it will just work out? I can't really explain what I'm trying to ask, but it's like thinking you won't like a certain type of food, then you try it, and it ends up being something you enjoy. I think there's always a chance - no matter how slim - that settling could turn out to be something more.

I suppose I'm just trying to look at it from a positive angle. No idea why though. I don't think anyone should just "settle" in much of anything.

Of course there's a chance it will just work out. There's just negligible odds. There's a chance that walking down the road will have you bump into your future partner.. but that doesn't mean you spent 23 hours of every day in the street pacing around.

To me, settling is disaster. This is not nice to say but if you are miserable, don't date. You'll just make them miserable too and for what? Just so you can "give it a go". That is not fair on anyone. That is extremely selfish.

Identify the issues that you have in life, find the stumbling blocks and remove them one by one. Sound hard? It can be, but doesn't have to be.

People will lie to you, they will tell you that if they could date you, they would... but this is a common thing people say when they don't want to tell you that you reek of desperation and they wouldn't ever date you.

Go to honest people and ask. Read personal improvement books. F*ck dating. Just live.. soon enough I promise you will find someone. Date when you have something to share, when you are content, when you have a life to offer them.

The reason people say that you find a partner when you stop looking is because when you stop looking, you live. It will burn you up otherwise.

Let go of the concept that you can only be happy if another person validates you.

I am sorry if this sounds harsh, but it's reality. Do you really want to be the kind of person who puts their own happiness ahead of others' "just in case it works out"? I don't think you would be happy with yourself if you did that.. the odds of failure are high, the chances of being hurt and hurting them are as high.

Just making progress, taking one step at a time feels good. Find those things you want to work on and do it. There's no time like the present... you could start to improve yourself, fix your life and work towards happiness, right now.
 
Settling is certainly something I feel I will end up doing I'm afraid. So no, I wouldn't have regrets. I don't want to be alone, and if I settled it wouldn't be great but I wouldn't be alone. I could certainly make do with less than ideal, because honestly I do think there is an 'ideal'. Or at least, not for me and I'm sure not for many people, probably the reason the rate of divorce has gone up.

Sort of a depressing thought really, but hey. I don't really know how to 'get out of that mindset' I'm afraid.
 
ThatZealousOne said:
Sort of a depressing thought really, but hey. I don't really know how to 'get out of that mindset' I'm afraid.

Good point.

Perhaps... redefine what is important.

It is settling if you need someone honest, and accept someone dishonest. You know it will fail.

It is not settling if you really prefer a brunette and go for a blonde. It's not a dealbreaker.

Sometimes our own standards are there to keep us safe, other times.. they can be foolish. Only you truly know.
 
Digitales said:
Good point.

Perhaps... redefine what is important.

Well, the only important thing I want is for a partner to like me and be able to stand being with me. Sort of the only thing I care about, all other preferences be dammed really. It's not much, but I can't even get that, so you know... I don't think I need to redefine what is important, I have pretty low standards. I'm not expecting dream girl to turn up, because that just doesn't happen, so I'll settle with what little I can get.

Thanks anyway.
 
Digitales said:
The concept of settling is to accept someone you know is not ideal. You already know there's going to be problems. To settle is to degrade yourself, betray your self respect, lie to them and essentially, give up. For what? Happiness? You can't find it that way. It's doomed to failure.
This isn't really true, though.
No one is "ideal". Ideals as people are non-existent in reality. We can idealize people all we want but the people in the world, even if you looked at every single person one by one, you'd never find anyone who could match every one of your ideals.
Human beings tend to idealize everything. We want everything to be "perfect", but in reality we only live in a world of true imperfection. That is what will always be doomed to failure. You cannot find perfection where it factually cannot exist.

So sometimes we do need to "settle". We need to realize that those ideals are nonsense and then ground ourselves. That act of grounding yourself is sometimes just called 'settling'.

Though I'm certainly not stating you should just get married to anyone. If someone doesn't make you happy now chances are they aren't going to make you happy later. But my point is that maybe you should start the entire process again by going back to the very beginning and ask yourself why it is you aren't happy, and then once that is answered you can then ask yourself whether it was them not making you happy or you simply not allowing yourself to be happy when they were trying.

Truth be told if you look at people and the way that relationships develop, modern people tend to pour all their emotions into these sort of trial relationships (we call it "dating") in which we lead ourselves to believe that our ideal might exist so long as we keep looking. The problem is that looking can go on indefinitely and finding "the right person" is actually more often just "the right person at the time". Feelings change. People change. All things change. This is a reality we all need to face. And if we are idealizing reality then how will we ever adapt or accept or even appreciate these changes?
And I mean just look at marriage and divorce rates between marriages "for love" and arranged marriages. When people drop all their expectations it stops being about ideals and starts being about real life.
That surely isn't to say we shouldn't have any standards. I simply mean to say we need to truly evaluate and understand ourselves in order to hold realistic standards regarding others. Sometimes happiness is found in the places you'd least expect it.
 
Despicable Me said:
And I mean just look at marriage and divorce rates between marriages "for love" and arranged marriages. When people drop all their expectations it stops being about ideals and starts being about real life.
That surely isn't to say we shouldn't have any standards. I simply mean to say we need to truly evaluate and understands in order to hold realistic standards regarding others. Sometimes happiness is found in the places you'd least expect it.

I agree with this. I already know no person or relationship is ideal, just as I already try to make myself fulfilled and happy on my own. I think it depends on how you describe settling as: something less than your ideal, or something less than your standard. I use the term settling to describe something less than my standard.

But as for arranged marriages, I cannot say whether they are happy ones. I believe most arranged marriages take place in more undeveloped countries and for economic reasons. I don't think the majority of people who get divorced didn't try to save their marriages and are complaining about their partner not being "ideal."
 
edamame721 said:
I agree with this. I already know no person or relationship is ideal, just as I already try to make myself fulfilled and happy on my own. I think it depends on how you describe settling as: something less than your ideal, or something less than your standard. I use the term settling to describe something less than my standard.
Yes, the definition for 'settling' we use definitely matters, but I think maybe my point with your definition would be reflecting on whether or not our standards are reasonable or simply fantasy story-book-love kind of thing.

In today's world we've got all these movies, TV shows, books, stories and fairy-tales, and etc. which all depict love as some sort of fated event between two completely inseparable people. In reality I've never really seen anyone like that. The best marriages I've ever seen have been between two people who simply respect each other greatly but participate in their own interests and activities and have a decent amount of time away from each other on a regularly basis. They don't spend each and every moment in each others' arms as they would in the movies or in our fairy tales.
Real love and media-depicted "love" seem to hold absolutely no similarities from what I can tell. Yet how are we to know anything about real love ourselves when the only form we can experience it in before it occurs is from the media? I think that is the real problem a lot of people have these days. Not everyone, of course, but a lot. Especially younger people.

edamame721 said:
But as for arranged marriages, I cannot say whether they are happy ones. I believe most arranged marriages take place in more undeveloped countries and for economic reasons. I don't think the majority of people who get divorced didn't try to save their marriages and are complaining about their partner not being "ideal."
These days arranged marriages are less of a thing, but marriage 'for love' being the 'norm' is actually a relatively new concept in the world. Humans have hundreds and thousands of years of history regarding arranged marriages, and not all of them were just for economic reasons. Different cultures have different traditions, of course. Even still 'for love' marriages were pretty rare until maybe a little over 100 years ago. In the span of all human history that's really just a blink of an eye.

Anyway, my point being is that maybe our modern society has just taken this concept a little too far. Maybe it's so new to us, us as a whole of humanity, despite all of us living now pretty much being born into knowing it, that we are really still experimenting with it and in the stages where it is still something exciting and new. That our former generations have really nothing yet to teach us on this issue because it was still so new to them, as well. Fifty-percent divorce rate statistics don't lie, after all. Maybe in terms of 'love', as a global-society, we are pretty much still just learning to walk, in the infantile stage.

Though that is a lot of 'maybes' and I know I am oversimplifying everything. The matter is obviously much more complicated than just that. But I think it is still an interesting way to look at it all, if you really think about it.
 
Despicable Me said:
That surely isn't to say we shouldn't have any standards. I simply mean to say we need to truly evaluate and understand ourselves in order to hold realistic standards regarding others. Sometimes happiness is found in the places you'd least expect it.

Absolutely. I don't think it's really "settling" if someone accepts that their partner isn't, say for another example, a blond when that's really what they want to go for. If everything else is there, and two people click, hair color shouldn't be an issue - a real issue. It's just a variable.

That's why I say good things come to those who have some patience. Because, goodness is sometimes found in the last place we look, or in things we would never consider.
 
Despicable Me said:
This isn't really true, though.
No one is "ideal". Ideals as people are non-existent in reality. We can idealize people all we want but the people in the world, even if you looked at every single person one by one, you'd never find anyone who could match every one of your ideals.
Human beings tend to idealize everything. We want everything to be "perfect", but in reality we only live in a world of true imperfection. That is what will always be doomed to failure. You cannot find perfection where it factually cannot exist.

I am not talking about idealism and semantics. I am speaking about going back on things you know that you need in a prospective partner.
I have already expressed that I am not talk about trivialities. You didn't read through what I posed in entirety did you?

A parent might find it essential that the other person love kids.
An abuse victim might find it extremely important to not date someone with anger issues.
I personally will not date a person who is dishonest or of low intellect.
A monogamous person probably shouldn't ever date someone who is in an open relationship.

When you go back on ESSENTIAL things in a relationship, when you accept that which you know in your heart of hearts is not going to make you happy in the long run, you're being a fool and allowing fears or biological demands overrule common sense. Desperation is known to cause this.

When you have dated people a while, when you have had relationships, you tend to get a feel for what makes you happy and what you cannot have in a relationship. This is not foolish idealism as you claim. This is common sense.

Don't betray yourself for the foolish notion that you "need somebody". After it falls apart you will feel even worse.
 
Digitales said:
Don't betray yourself for the foolish notion that you "need somebody".

Well, we may not really need anyone, but the idea can be a nice thing. And if someone finds a person that they get along with and enjoy their company, then that's great.
 
Settling for someone's physical features (hair color, physique, body type, etc) might make sense if you are only interested in specificalities to match your personal preference, and not meeting or connecting with someone who has what you seek over passage of time. Settling when it involves everything about specific person that you have become involved with over time is another matter entirely. And I don't include internet / never met face to face type 'romantic' relationships, which are generally nothing more than flights of fantasy, if that.

I became involved with a girl who lived far away. We met through a mutual website group forum around 2002. After 3 or 4 months of daily contact, we met in person on neutral ground / out of our area. She flew out and I drove (I was closer) for, get this, Valentine's Day (ugh). It was on a weekend so we decided to do something we were both interested in (sight-seeing). For me, it wasn't a "this is my dream girl" overwhelming feeling of love and lust. I did like her, we were great matches if you evaluate by mutual interests and life experiences. WE were both the types who have difficulty in relationships and I know that was probably the main drive that kept us working at it for the entire / almost 4 year duration of our relationship.

She was the first to decide that she really didn't like me (said via phone call that I wasn't her type from a physical standpoint after we returned to our respective homes). Me, I remember feeling a bit angry that she "was giving up" after our first meetup on that Valentine's Day. A week later, she changed her mind and wanted us to meet again. I was always the one who would feel like I never got a chance when it came to meeting girls; I'd get dismissed after a meetup or one quick date. I always felt that it takes time, and unless you know someone for a bit of time, the act of making a decision right off seemed a bit unfair. I was determined to try and make the long distance deal work. And I really tried, since I was the one who spent the time and $$$ to fly out to meet her for long weekends or with vacation time. She didn't have the $$$, being a grad student at the time. She also had to "hide" our relationship from her family, due to religious differences.

That second issue always cropped up during our time spent together in person. She had to lie constantly, and the stress it brought on her, and eventually, to me was just too much to deal with in the end. She also had issues which I won't go into here, all things I initially blamed on her family stresses and the intensity of getting thru grad school. She also had a short temper and could literally explode over the smallest, insignificant thing. I recall one day trying to maneuver in her bathroom, she had a pair of sinks in there and both were littered with stuff. It was everywhere. I had no room to place my small bag with my toothbrush, deodorant, etc) anywhere on the vanity. She kept her toothbrush in a plastic cup near the faucet of the one sink that was used for running water and washing - the other sink was full of her "things", to be kind. Well, while I was in there getting ready to shower at the start of our day, I accidentally knocked over the cup with her toothbrush. The toothbrush bounced off the vanity and fell to the floor. If the floor had been clean (it was, shall I say, needing a soap & water cleaning due to her cat running amok in the kitty litter tracking it everywhere on the tile floor), well it wouldn't be a problem. She saw me knock the cup over from the other side of the room, and she went totally ballistic. Called me a clumsy clod, said I ruined her day because that was her only toothbrush and now she had to go out and buy another one...then she used this incident as a springboard to vent her displeasure with me and "us". Normally I don;t like to argue. But by "settling" with this girl, I was allowing myself to be abused and belittled. I didn;t want to rock the boat.

So, I put up with this type of crap for nearly 4 years until I finally, for the first time in my life, blew a gasket and stood up for myself. I told her I wasn't going to ever convert to her religious faith (she thought I would do it in the end if I really loved her), I wasn't going to be the one to always compromise (me going to see her, me having never met her family, me having to agree to her ideologies...) and I wasn't going to deal with her indecisions that were based on what OTHER people would think of her actions. That last one turned out to be a red flag evident from the get go that I chose to ignore. I told her we were done via an angry phone call blow up . She kept calling but I would not answer. After a few cooling off days we did speak, she apologized, as she always did after an argument (that she initiated) cried, etc. But I was just plain exhausted from everything by that point in time. I'd fly back home on the plane after visiting her, thinking to myself, "What am I DOING?" Yet, when she called upon my return, that feeling faded. I wanted to make the relationship work. I really tried, as did she.

I have not spoken to her in several years, although we did end on good terms and stayed friends. I even paid for her to come out to a music festival about 2 years after our break up for her birthday. We finally were able, by then, to admit to each other that we wanted the relationship, the feeling of being in one, but felt that the partner was not whom we really wanted. We hoped things would change. We hoped we would be able to "get used" to partner flaws and character traits that didn't quite make us feel at ease.
We "settled".
The experience had some good moments and memories, but truthfully, our relationship went on far too long.

I'll never settle for another person ever again just to have a relationship. Even if I am alone for the rest of my days.
 
Digitales said:
I am not talking about idealism and semantics.
But you were talking about idealism before and you are indeed arguing about semantics now. So I'm a little confused why you're saying this.

Digitales said:
I am speaking about going back on things you know that you need in a prospective partner.
And, no offense, but I don't think you really made that entirely clear.
"Needs" and "ideals" are different things, and you only really used the word "need" once before now. In all the other cases you were talking about 'ideals'. Perhaps you were using them as synonyms, but like I said you didn't make that clear before and if this is what you're arguing now then that is merely just semantics.

Digitales said:
I have already expressed that I am not talk about trivialities.
And I did, too. So how is this relevant?

Digitales said:
You didn't read through what I posed in entirety did you?
Rather than making accusations perhaps reread your own posts and try to identify where you actually clarified what you meant with anything but a one-off example.

To clarify, if you had been the one to read my posts in their entirety, I made it clear I wasn't talking about abandoning all standards entirely. I wasn't talking about accepting a "dishonest person" when you need honesty, which is the only example you ever gave.
What I am talking about is more something like accepting someone whom you do not initially feel physically attracted to, accepting someone who does not fit any of your fantasy-qualities, or generally just accepting someone who you have a lot in common with, like a friend.

Tell me something. What do you see as the difference between someone marrying the person they "love" and someone marrying a friend?
Does it honestly matter in the larger scope of things that there isn't some sort of huge connection between the friends like their is for the people who "love" each other?
Does it matter if they aren't lusting after each other, if they aren't happy with every little thing they do, or if they generally don't want to spend every waking moment with the other person?

I really don't think so. I think, if anything, the two people who aren't much more than friends, but decided to simply make that a more permanent relationship, probably actually have the stronger bond than the two people who think they are "in love".
"Love" doesn't always last, but acceptance, respect, honesty, and appreciation do. And real love, the kind that does last, grows out of these kind of things.

I just think that as a society we depend too much on our ideals, and I don't mean 'ideals' as in fantasizing about some unrealistic strawberry-blond shy virgin princess or whatever people might imagine. I mean simple ideals like what they believe they need to have physical attraction, what sort of history someone has, what they might have done, who they used to be, even personality traits which might not be immediately appealing but are not in themselves detrimental to the relationship.

I'm talking about something like marrying someone who was once divorced, has 2 kids, older than you, is introverted, and might be a little overweight when all your entire life you'd imagined marrying someone younger, no kids, someone equally experienced, someone outgoing, and someone physically attractive and a healthy size. And maybe even between two people who don't have all that deep of a 'love' sort of connection, but people who simply admire, respect, accept, and trust each other enough to form a lasting, enduring relationship.
And that's just one example. There are untold numbers of variations in which two people would otherwise simply just not be together but otherwise do have this sort of relationship.

I would say that, by all definitions of the word, is "settling" no matter what other semantics we attempt to use. And I highly doubt you can say all those things are "trivial" either. So I honestly don't see anything wrong with "settling", because so many people, and I used to be like this by the way, simply have these ridiculous expectations of what life is "supposed to" be, and then they are faced with the harsh reality that life is almost nothing as they expected it to be. And then they sometimes make bad decisions based on those expectations, or pass many good opportunities simply because they were expecting more or something different.

And just look at our society. They might see someone "normal" with someone most people think is "ugly" or someone with a disability and wonder how these people are together. People will scoff and laugh at these sort of relationships all the time.
But you know what? Those people laughing or judging and these people who just don't get it are the ones with the real problem, and I think we all know this. And their problem stems from their false ideals. Their unreasonable expectations. Their ignorance of the way the world really works.

And I think if you'll read everything I'm saying you'd know I'm not disagreeing with you about anything fundamental. Most of what you're saying is definitely true. But I think you're just going too far with judging the option of "settling". Rarely are things in reality actually so extreme that we can simply cut some options out entirely and judge everyone who takes those paths to be fools. All I'm really saying is we should consider everything carefully.

In the end I think we do agree. So long as you understand your own needs and choose someone suited for you, and don't take anything less than what you actually need, then you'll be fine. I just wanted to point out that it really is okay to just settle for what you need and not necessarily always try to get everything you want. Sometimes we pay the price for that sort of greed. And it's easy enough for people to agree when it comes to money, jobs, homes, and etc., but when it comes to "love" and marriage people very often seem to do a 180 and reject this concept entirely. And I'm not really sure why other than society has simply idealized it too much for too long.

Anyway, I hope you see my point now.
 
(Quote) "Love" doesn't always last, but acceptance, respect, honesty, and appreciation do. And real love, the kind that does last, grows out of these kind of things.

"Love" includes all of the attributes noted above rolled into one. Whether in friendship or something more than friendship.

Lust is what may not last over time.
 

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