As we enter our 20s, we can’t help but think, so when exactly am I going to meet Mr. Right? When will we meet him? Will we ever met him? Well, finding Mr. Right takes a little effort on our part. As much as we would love for him to be standing at our front door, tall, dark, and handsome with flowers in hand, we have a little work to do.
Yes, ideally we would like him to be 6 feet tall, handsome, smart, charming, etc. Perhaps our standards are too high? Well no, not necessarily. It’s important to have standards. But we have to remember if we have standards, so do men. If we make it a requirement that he must be at least 6 feet tall, then that’s like a man saying her bra size has to be at least a C. Breast size and height are things we cannot control. It’s a double standard on standards. Just something we need to keep in mind when we are sizing up a guy.
So we have our standards. A checklist of all the things we hope he has. Even if we don’t say it out loud or physically write it down, we all have one. That’s okay. But when we do find this guy who has most of the things we are looking for in Mr. Right, we can’t pull a Katherine Heigl in The Ugly Truth when she tells the guy sitting across from her that he meets nine out of the ten necessary attributes on her checklist. Awkward.
When we do find guys we are interested in, we can’t expect the guys to do all the work. Sure we want them to impress us with their wit and charm, but we can’t expect those qualities to shine if we are sitting idle. Relationships are a two-way street. If we are interested, we have to show it by answering his questions and accepting his invitations to hang out. He’s asking questions because he wants to get to know you. Sometimes it might feel like an interrogation, but that’s why you ask questions back. It’s not a one-sided thing. If you’re interested in him, then this should seem pretty obvious. Yet, for some reason, we hem and haw about having no one to text and that no guys like us. Then, when some guys show interest, we aren’t sure if they are worth our time. Granted, they might not be. But if they put in the effort, shouldn’t we at least try to give him the benefit of the doubt? Or if we know it’s not worth our time, then we should be honest about it and move on?
Perhaps we are still single because we haven’t found anyone that meets our standards, or maybe we weren’t showing enough interest in the past. And maybe it’s because we fear commitment. The progression of our 20s starts out with us being happy and single, then slowly,but surely progresses to well I better start looking for someone, to sheer panic once our friends start getting engaged. We have time. But we can’t fear commitment. Once we are finished be happy and free and single, we have to put in the effort.
It seems easier not to commit. There isn’t as much to lose. If you hook up or hang out once and he never answers your text again, while it may sting initially, you will get over it pretty quickly and move on. Or perhaps, we are afraid if we start something, someone better will come along. We fear that if we are committed in a relationship we may miss out on someone else that has more in common with us. But countering that argument, if you never fully invest yourself in the relationship with the person you are with, you may miss out on how amazing he is.
It’s a constant battle of the “ifs”. If I do this, then this well happen. If I don’t do this, then this will happen. Stop playing the game. Logic doesn’t always tend to work in relationships. Sometimes you just have to go with your gut. I know it’s cliché, but if we want to be “single and ready to mingle” in hopes of finding Mr. Right, we have to be in the right mind set. Keep our standards, be open to possibilities, act interested if we are interested (why risk playing hard to get?), and if it’s right then give it a go. Commitment doesn’t mean we are giving up our freedom, instead it could mean we are moving on and ready for something new.