Should I settle for comfort or keep looking for that connection?

October 18, 2013 9:54 AM

I haven't had much luck with long-term relationships. I want a partner who is observant and can keep up with me on a conversational level, but those guys tend not to like me. I never like the people who like me back. Should I change my expectations for a connection or should I hold out for the kind of guy I'm looking for?

I'm ready to commit to a long-term relationship. I'm a 26 year old woman and I don't think I have anything more to learn about myself by proxy of dating multiple people. I'm not thinking about kids at all right now but I want someone I can share my life with. I want someone I can send witty texts to about mundane things. I want someone to travel with, to support me when I'm having a bad day and whom I can support in return, to have inside jokes with etc.

The problem is that I've never had one of these. My longest relationship was six months and it was with a longtime friend whom I settled for. I kept looking for people I was more attracted to the whole time. He must have figured out I cheated on him because we sure aren't friends anymore.

I don't aim for the best-looking/most talented/most charismatic guy in the room. But I am most attracted to guys with a dry sense of humor and an abstract way of thinking. About me: I'm attractive but I have mild autism. I tend to go for people who are better than I am socially, but I've also fallen for other awkward people who end up dumping me because they want somebody less awkward.

There's a specific type of guy that tends to like me: loner, outdoorsy, very loyal but not very observant. Seeing as the guys I'm crazy about inevitably break up with me after a month, do you think I should learn to love someone with some common interests who might not be as smart as I want? Or do I have time to keep looking for someone with the conversational compatibility I'm hoping for?

posted by tuberose to Human Relations (32 answers total)

I wonder if you are conflating "observant/intelligent" (which you want) with "witty/dry sense of humor" (which does NOT necessarily imply observant or intelligent, in my experience). A guy who lives to make wisecracks isn't necessarily observant, so much as he craves being the center of attention at all times.
posted by showbiz_liz at 9:59 AM on October 18, 2013 [5 favorites]

I think it might help to stop thinking of people as "types," and instead see them as individuals. But to answer your question: I personally don't think it's ever a good idea to settle for any reason.
posted by something something at 10:00 AM on October 18, 2013 [15 favorites]

You're young. Why give up on your dreams now? There are billions of partners that fit what you're looking for.
posted by agregoli at 10:01 AM on October 18, 2013 [5 favorites]

Also, this puzzles me: There's a specific type of guy that tends to like me: loner, outdoorsy, very loyal but not very observant. Seeing as the guys I'm crazy about inevitably break up with me after a month, do you think I should learn to love someone with some common interests who might not be as smart as I want?

Are you saying you don't think that loner, outdoorsy, loyal, AND observant/intelligent men exist? Because I know many of them. They might not hold up flashing signs saying "Look how goddamn smart I am" like the men you seem to be drawn to, but it doesn't mean they're not brilliant people.
posted by showbiz_liz at 10:01 AM on October 18, 2013 [12 favorites]

You're only 26. You should not be settling for anything at this point.
posted by joan_holloway at 10:02 AM on October 18, 2013 [13 favorites]

Seconding agregoli. Nothing in your post matters regarding the question at hand except the actual question which is also your thread title. Therefore, the answer is: Keep looking for that connection.

You will find it. You will regret not looking for it. You are only 26 for cryin' out loud. I would give the same advice to someone who is 36; even 46.
posted by TinWhistle at 10:05 AM on October 18, 2013 [1 favorite]

I don't think you should settle, no. Especially in terms of intelligence. I was in a LTR with a guy who was not as smart as me/not as smart as I would like and god... I not only never got used to it, it actually got more and more irritating. The guy was nice and treated me well, but I just couldn't keep dating him.

So no. Don't settle. I think you can be flexible on some of your things, and if it is the right person you wouldn't even think twice about it. For example, I always looked for a tall man who loved cats and who was a gym bunny like me. I ended up falling in love with a man only a couple inches taller than me, who both hates and is allergic to cats, and who refuses to work out in a gym. And yet he is perfect for me because he is funny and intelligent and we share morals and values and expectations for the future. We have incredible sexual chemistry and we just click on so so many levels that being with him feels incredibly natural. And yet there are still enough differences between us to keep it interesting. I'm still a gym bunny and he isn't, and that is okay. We don't have to share everything. We are extremely happy, and we just got married a month ago.

Look for a person, not specific traits. And don't settle. If it is right, it won't feel like settling and you'd never be asking the question.
posted by PuppetMcSockerson at 10:07 AM on October 18, 2013 [11 favorites]

Look for a person, not specific traits.

I couldn't agree with this more. My partner is not the "type" of guy I thought I would end up with - he is different from anyone I have ever dated in the past, and I'm happier now than I could have ever imagined.

Don't settle. Dust settles.
posted by gursky at 10:13 AM on October 18, 2013 [7 favorites]

There's a specific type of guy that tends to like me: loner, outdoorsy, very loyal but not very observant. Seeing as the guys I'm crazy about inevitably break up with me after a month, do you think I should learn to love someone with some common interests who might not be as smart as I want?

Actually, I totally hear this.

I don't really date men anymore, but I have a type: small, bad-tempered dudes with glasses who read a lot. That type of fellow virtually always goes for even smaller women, usually very sweet-tempered or feisty-cute. I'm not tiny, either vertically or horizontally. My opinion is that short, mean, brainy dudes grow up with a lot of pressure about being insufficiently "masculine" and therefore tend to grow into preferring more "feminine" women. (Not saying that this is a fake preference - it's perfectly real. It's just that, like most of our romantic preferences, it's social.)

So anyway, the men I'm attracted to are almost never attracted to me.

I have the option of dating women, which I assume that you don't.

If I were dating men only, I would cast my net as wide as possible - I'd try OkCupid and every sort of activity where I might meet small mean men with glasses. I'd be pretty specific about what I was looking for - I wouldn't go on any dates with tall, nice men just because they liked me. My assumption would be that small mean men who like gender-nonconforming people of my physical type are very rare but that some still exist and my goal would be to meet as many men as possible until I met the right one.

I gave up on dating men partly because I didn't want to do this but primarily for other reasons.
posted by Frowner at 10:14 AM on October 18, 2013 [6 favorites]

Should I change my expectations for a connection or should I hold out for the kind of guy I'm looking for?

These aren't mutually exclusive. You should always be adjusting your expectations while maintaining your standards. Because expectations can't all be reasonably fulfilled for most people and unless they're unreasonable, standards protect you from shitty people.

Adjusting your expectations and "settling" are also two very different things. The first involves realizing that a certain quality can make up for other certain qualities, and that relationships help people improve for the better. The latter is about giving up that your partner will ever fulfill you in a way that is important to you. Do not go into a relationship knowing off the bat that it will not be fulfilling. That is a waste of everyone's time.

Obviously you shouldn't go into a relationship saying "I expect the other person to have totally different habits and behaviors" but suggestions can work. Most guys I know changed for the better when they entered serious relationships both because they wanted to and because their significant others made reasonable requests of them.
posted by griphus at 10:14 AM on October 18, 2013 [12 favorites]

a partner who is observant and can keep up with me on a conversational level, but those guys tend not to like me

That is a broad enough category of people that generalizing about what they tend to like is almost guaranteed to be incorrect. Same can be said for your generalization about the type of guys who do "tend to like" you. People don't just fall into tidy categories like that. You're over extrapolating from insufficient data.
posted by ook at 10:15 AM on October 18, 2013 [3 favorites]

Don't settle and do keep on looking for a connection; however, you should consider the possibility that the person with whom you end up having a connection will be different than you expect. When I was in my 20s, I thought I was only attracted to analytical, argumentative women. I was focused not just on intelligent women, but on a specific type of intelligent woman. I met my wife. She is not someone who I previously would have considered my type. She is funny and intelligent, but in a different way. We complement each other in ways that I didn't foresee.
posted by Area Man at 10:26 AM on October 18, 2013 [1 favorite]

I kept looking for people I was more attracted to the whole time. He must have figured out I cheated on him because we sure aren't friends anymore. 

Before anything, fix this.

You may land a guy you soon appreciate as wonderful, but lose him due to this behavior.
posted by Kruger5 at 10:27 AM on October 18, 2013 [6 favorites]

But to answer your question: I personally don't think it's ever a good idea to settle for any reason.

Everyone says this but I sort of think it's bullshit. We all can look at our partners and realize that they're not perfect. Why doesn't my girlfriend look like a super model? Or make a million dollars a year? Or win the nobel prize? Wouldn't it be *awesome* if those were the case? Why don't I break up with her and wait for someone who does all those things to come along?

Or, on a more realistic level, why does my girlfriend hog the blankets? Or let the dishes pile up in the sink? Or like hanging out with that annoying friend? Why don't I break up with her over those things? Shouldn't I not "settle" and look for exactly what I want?

All of us - ourselves and our partners have flaws and various incompatibilities. If you look for the "perfect person" you will spend your life single. A successful relationship is built in large part around learning to live with another person *as they are* and not as they would if they were perfect for you. I actually think there's a good analogy to be made between partners and job candidates. When you want to hire someone to run accounts receivable, you look for someone who can do all the required work, and you don't much care about what music they listen to. The same, really, should be true of partners. You want someone attractive and caring and responsible and whatever else, but you don't get to customize every little detail of their personality to suit yourself. Like job candidates, you will never find someone who is absolutely *perfect* for you in every way. You have to live with this and earn to work with or around their inadequacies, because we *all* have inadequacies.
posted by tylerkaraszewski at 10:28 AM on October 18, 2013 [16 favorites]

You get what you settle for. So don't settle.

Do learn to be awesome all on your own. Enjoy your life to the fullest exactly where you are right now.

Relationships aren't the point of our lives, they are the icing on the cake!
posted by Ruthless Bunny at 10:29 AM on October 18, 2013

Set aside "long-term" for a second; you're young and you need to not get all panicked about Finding the One Guy for Forever.

Try to prioritize what you are really looking for.

So, what is really really important to you? Start with what you don't want, like "does not attract me," "is not as smart as me," "has no sense of humor or one that doesn't match mine," etc. Then flip them; you want a guy who you are attracted to, who has a sense of humor you connect to, who is as smart as you.

BUT. Also remember that humans have variations. For example, attraction is something that can grow over time...if you like everything else about a person, they may become more attractive to you (but not always! and that's ok!).

Intelligence can also come in different flavors; so if you are highly skilled at math but not a reader, and he is deeply intellectual about literature but not interested in math, will that be a problem? Do you need to have a similar type of knowledge/intelligence as him in order to feel like you can communicate? (this is also ok!)

Sense of humor is one that was always important to me, but isn't to a lot of people. I can't trust someone who doesn't get/like my jokes, basically. It works as an emotional shorthand for me. But maybe not for you. Maybe for you it's how he treats animals/whether he's a vegetarian, or how he feels about racial issues/politics, or what have you.

The key is, basically, to get to know yourself, your own priorities, and then to embrace them as you go out and date. You can't evaluate whether you're a good match with someone if you're not being honest about who you are and what matters to you. Not because you're looking for someone who is your male twin in every way, but because you need to be with someone who likes/is attracted to you for who you are, and vice versa.

And here's the other part; you have to be ok with being alone if you don't find the right person. Because a miserable marriage is so so much worse than being by yourself. You don't need a partner to have a good life. It's a nice thing! But every time you date, you should feel free to walk away if it's not working, because the "worst" thing that could happen is that you stay single. And single is fine, whether it's your whole life or you meet someone at 85 and get 10 short but happy years. Being ok with being alone was necessary for me in order to silence the "settle or die alone!" fears I'd been trained to have. And it wasn't until I after I did that that I met the right person to be with.
posted by emjaybee at 10:40 AM on October 18, 2013 [6 favorites]

Everyone says this but I sort of think it's bullshit. We all can look at our partners and realize that they're not perfect.

Exactly this. There is a word that describes those who refuse to "settle": alone. Most people find their spouses within their own town. What a coincidence that so many perfect matches live near each other!

As tylerkaraszewski stated, everything is a trade-off. No one is the perfect match, and you probably wouldn't recognize the perfect match if you found him. So, to answer your question, you need to be open to trade-offs if you wish to decrease your chances of being alone. However, no one here can tell you what those trade-offs should be.
posted by Tanizaki at 10:45 AM on October 18, 2013 [5 favorites]

There is a word that describes those who refuse to "settle": alone.

Alone is an unfortunate predicament. Lone is an aesthetic choice.
posted by Packed Lunch at 10:52 AM on October 18, 2013 [3 favorites]

Try not to slot every guy you meet into a "type". Just get to know them and see if you like them. But don't settle for someone you don't have a real connection with. You're only 26, and since you said you aren't thinking about kids right now, there's no real time pressure.
posted by barnoley at 10:55 AM on October 18, 2013

There's a difference between "settling" and giving people a chance that you don't think of as being your type. 6 months is not a very long time in terms of experience in long-term relationships (and I'm sorry, but to me anything less barely comprises experience in terms of learning about what relationships are really about in the long term), and so I guess I think it's pretty likely that you do have quite a bit left to learn about yourself in terms of what might fulfill you, in the long term, in a relationship.

To me settling means staying in a relationship that is fundamentally not fulfilling you (and either or neither partner is engaged in fixing it or repeated attempts to fix it have failed) or requires compromises you can't actually live with, and your main reason for staying is to avoid being alone and making that work.

There is no assurance that a relationship has long-term potential in advance so if you don't give things a chance you reduce your chances of finding a long term relationship that works. "I didn't think I was really attracted initially" and "(s)he was the kind of person I never considered dating" and "but I didn't really think it had long term potential" are not-uncommon themes among my friends in long-term relationships.
posted by nanojath at 11:03 AM on October 18, 2013 [1 favorite]

"Don't settle" is meaningless cliched advice, understandable if coming from a teenager, sad otherwise. Relationships are all about compromise, the trick is knowing what compromises are acceptable and what are not. So by all means have ideal standards but recognise that partnerships take 2, just as you are not the perfect match for someone else, neither are you likely to find someone who is perfect in all regards.
posted by epo at 11:09 AM on October 18, 2013 [2 favorites]

You have a specific fantasy in your head that is taking up so much space there's not much room for a real human in there. Further, you say you cheated in a previous relationship, but don't indicate you've done any work to ensure you won't do that again. In my opinion based on the limited information in your question, you are not asking the questions that will lead to a fulfilling relationship.

This is a big project, but to find a fulfilling, lasting relationship, you may need to abandon the project of trying to have a relationship. Do some exploration of yourself. Why did you cheat? What are other types of behaviors like this, and how can you address them? Do you want to try therapy? What about forgetting a template of the perfect guy, and signing up for more activities where you canmeet people? Then, organically, you will meet guys that share your interests. You can then gage each of these guys on their own merits, not measuring them according to your constructed ideals?

In short, I think you have a lot of personal growth work to do before, or in the process of finding a fulfilling relationship.
posted by latkes at 11:13 AM on October 18, 2013 [2 favorites]

I think the "don't settle" advice can be confusing as an across-the-board mantra because it will apply to different people differently. For people who are just perfectionists in every area of life and really hard on themselves and others, there is a degree to which learning to relax expectations is an important part of growing up and getting real. Some people have whirlwind love at first sight perfect matches. But it's partly their romantic personalities that allow that to happen. Skeptical, analytic people often feel skeptical and analytic even about stuff that is presumed to be gut-level. Every relationship is unique.

At 26, I wouldn't worry too much. The best you can do is meet a lot of people and be open to possibilities. The more people you meet, the greater chance you have of finding a good match. Don't worry now if a hypothetical person would be a good match, though. Meet a bunch of real people first.
posted by mdn at 11:18 AM on October 18, 2013 [2 favorites]

I think the "don't settle" advice can be confusing as an across-the-board mantra because it will apply to different people differently

Absolutely this.

OP, I think the fact that people are saying you absolutely shouldn't settle and other people are saying you absolutely should settle, and then offering nearly-identical advice to one another is a big clue to the meaninglessness of the word. Strike it from your mind and things may get simpler for you.
posted by griphus at 11:23 AM on October 18, 2013 [4 favorites]

Sorry, what? You cheated with the last guy because you were looking out for something better?

So when I am sizing up potential mates, what I am generally looking for is good listener, supportive, faithful, and some of those other things you mentioned. People who have those same qualities to offer are often looking for the same thing. I'm not big into "types" of people, but to me, proclivity to stay in a relationship you're unhappy with while keeping your options open/and or cheating seems to point to a lack of confidence, or something. You may be sending out some signals that is making a certain kind of guy decide to take a pass.

If you're intellectually curious, and are looking for someone who is intellectually curious and stable, then keep looking till you find him, because those are perfectly legitimate requirements to have and those dudes are totally out there. If you're looking for someone who has a PhD or works in astrophysics, then lower your expectations and "settle" for an interesting and stable guy without a high paying job.

You might think of considering guys who don't meet your witty/dry sense of humor requirement because that particular personality trait is pretty tangential to a happy relationship. But YMMV!
posted by mermily at 12:09 PM on October 18, 2013 [1 favorite]

You're not in relationships to learn about yourself, you're in relationships for companionship and comfort of various sorts.

My wife says I'm not the kind of guy who fit her "type," and I'm not sure if she would have fit my "types" if you described her to me before we actually met. But we clicked, and our preconceived notions of our types didn't matter. We share a lot of interests, but we aren't 1:1 matches across all our interests and dis-interests, and we make each-other quite happy.

Neither my wife nor I had any serious long-term relationships before we met each-other, and we were fairly happy doing our own things without a significant other. We found what made us as individuals happy, then we found each-other, and we make the other happier.

My longest relationship was six months and it was with a longtime friend whom I settled for. I kept looking for people I was more attracted to the whole time. He must have figured out I cheated on him because we sure aren't friends anymore.

This reminds me of a guy I knew who always seemed like he was OK talking to you, but he'd be looking over your shoulder for someone more interesting, which made me feel like I didn't really want to spend any more time talking to him. Sure, we were conversing, but I was just a placeholder. Don't do this to anyone, especially someone you're dating.

And 26 is young. Hell, 46 can be young to "settle." People find great matches for them at all sorts of ages - you aren't cast aside as a spinster for life if you don't find someone before you turn 30. My grandfather's first wife died, then he re-married in his 50s and was happily married until he died in his 80s.

Enjoy life, enjoy being an individual with friends, and enjoy dating. If you don't enjoy dating, don't stress out, and enjoy being around people. You're bound to find someone who clicks with you, sometime, somewhere.
posted by filthy light thief at 12:53 PM on October 18, 2013

Train yourself out of any kind of "settling" or "type" style of thinking. People are vast and contain multitudes and you can't just shop for one like you would a car with power steering and a sunroof.

Work on defining who you are to yourself, learn to enjoy your own company first, and someone will fall into your life when you're not trying to fit others into narrowly-defined borders.
posted by Lipstick Thespian at 1:28 PM on October 18, 2013

I (male) looked and looked until I was 35. Then I met my true love, and we both fell hard. We lived together for two years to make sure and then got married. It's 30 years and counting.
posted by KRS at 3:01 PM on October 18, 2013 [1 favorite]

Look, I'm just a stranger on the Internet, and I don't know you, but I recommend that you abandon any predetermined type. However, that doesn't mean you aren't supposed to have any standards. My current SO is a guy who I would not have guessed would be compatible with me, but he's smart and sweet and funny and handsome and all-around awesome. And neither of us was looking for somebody at the moment. We felt the attraction and ran with it.

You need to ask yourself: Does he treat you well? Does he make time for you? Does he not give a million excuses for how damaged he is or busy or unavailable or whatever? Does he make you feel good about yourself? Fuck all the games, second-guessing, and any other BS.
posted by computech_apolloniajames at 4:12 PM on October 18, 2013 [4 favorites]

My longest relationship was six months and it was with a longtime friend whom I settled for. I kept looking for people I was more attracted to the whole time. He must have figured out I cheated on him because we sure aren't friends anymore.

since this is what happened when you settled before i think the possibility of it happening again is quite high. do. not. settle. you are young and you just need to expand where/how you are meeting people. there is surely someone out there for you that you will fall in love with.
posted by wildflower at 5:38 PM on October 18, 2013

This talk of "settling" is weird because it's kind of assuming you choose and then you are locked in forever. That's not how this works. You shouldn't stop yourself from keeping an open mind and learning about someone because you assume immediately that they just dont match your type. You can go on a couple dates with someone unexpected or that you didn't immediatelyfeel a connection to without thinking of it as settling. Open minds are good, and it only costs you some time.

Getting MARRIED to someone you aren't into is settling. Not going out on dates a few times just to see if there could be something there. Middle ground, sweetie.
posted by Blisterlips at 9:54 AM on October 19, 2013 [1 favorite]

Relationships are often about meeting needs and getting needs met, if you really whittle it down. You are sort of muddling what your needs are with an ideal of who you think will meet those needs and would probably be surprised if you landed one of the guys who meets your ideal criteria that there may still be many things lacking (I can vouch for this having revised my "list" as I recognized that what I thought I wanted didn't yield the kind of relationship I was after).

Actual needs: can have interesting conversations with me, can support me on a bad day, makes me laugh

Not actual needs: witty text interaction, abstract thinker, dry humor

Do not let a checklist distract from evaluating whether someone is actually meeting your needs, just in a way you didn't expect, or confuse achieving the complete checklist with a good relationship that is right for you, and don't get in a relationship that is meeting none of your needs for companionship.
posted by skermunkil at 3:40 PM on October 19, 2013 [4 favorites]