I have been thinking about two articles I read yesterday. Combined, they make a whole lot of sense.
The first, one about potential in a partner, came from match.com (yes, I read this shit, sue me). Partner potential, is just that, potential. It is not fact. It is not even real hope. It is just what humans do when trying to see the good in people they somehow became attracted to. That cute guy who may made eye contact while getting his change at the grocery store? Potential. The guy in the office with the bad haircut, but thoughtful blue eyes? Potential. The hot dad with the wedding ring tan line and obnoxious daughter in your son’s class? Potential.
Since I spend way too much time reading into things, my first thought was “I never do this!” Who am I kidding? I do this all the time. I spend much of the time in my own head inventing the future I want to have with men I have never even talked to, much less dated. (Creativity is sometimes a burden I have to carry. The same thing that makes it so I can write this blog is also what makes it so I have complex fantasies about the FedEx guy. It has its perks.) But it also makes me more susceptible to having real life people that have zero potential become fixations. I ignore red flags. I confuse lust with love. I ascribe positive characteristics that just aren’t there. I read texts and emails as if they are personal love notes full of desire. There is no way a guy can win at this, and be a real person. But that’s okay. Each of these things can be contributed to the potential I see in the object of my attraction to be the man of my dreams..
Well, dream on, because here is the topic of the second article (the one I think I wanna start living by): Unless you can close the deal, potential is shit.
It was harsh. It said that being nice, seeing people as nice, acting nice in all situations is bullshit. It gets you nothing. Potential means that you *may* get good results, but unless you *are* getting good results, you have done NOTHING. Wow, what a kick in the head. I mean, I am a nice person (when I am not acting like a bitch). I do nice things. I keep a nice house and have nice kids. I am also fucking delusional, but I like my happy little world. People know me here.
So the two articles related because I tend to think of men I am attracted to as “nice” but since they are not “closing the deal”, nice means jack. I think of myself as nice, but unless I am nice AND can help a guy with yard work, balance his checkbook, play nice with his former in-laws, and can deal with football play-offs without losing my shit, nice just got me nothing. Yeah, beautiful girls will get a guy to take her home, but if she can’t stand his socks on the floor when he is tired, that might be an issue later on down the road.
As for nice men? Flirt with me in the grocery store? Okay, that was fun, but since you didn’t ask how to contact me to flirt again your “potential” meter was high, but your “close” meter was broken. Guy that danced with me and bought me drinks, but left with someone else? Same thing. It doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy myself. Getting a cute guy to buy you drinks while out dancing is awesome. What it does mean is that right there is where it needs to stop, at least in my head. Accepting that is hard, me being a single woman who actually enjoys sex, and wants monogamy. But the flip side of that is that if I only see potential, and I waste tons of my time, and maybe some of theirs, creating a universe in which no one could possibly live happily.
Wanna live happily? Good, me too. That is a damn nice thought, but what do you bring to the table that makes that happen? I am not saying I need to have a bikini ready body and an ever ready sex drive, while always having good beverages and baseball stats memorized. But I should be offering something more than “nice”. It also means that I need to stop believing that just because a guy has a penis and I have a vagina, we are a perfect match. Long term, more than that is necessary. Close the deal, be the guy I want to be with so I can be the girl you want to be with. Putting it into practice will be harder, but starting with making my own potential into someone I would want to date is a good step. Letting go of the fantasies might take some work. Except for the ones about Peirce Brosnan and Liam Hemsworth, I am keeping those. They have potential, right?
