Don’t Settle

As little girls, when we pick up a flower like the one above, somewhere along the lines, we’re taught to pick the petals and say, “He loves me. He loves me not.” Hoping the whole time that the last flower proves the object of our little girl affection “Loves me.” Never in this scenario did our mothers teach us to pull a petal off the flower and say, “Do we have something in common? Do I love him? Will he make me happy? Do we share the same goals?” and so on and so forth, you get the point.

Is this (and so many other “lies told to little girls”) the root of many women’s dating problems? Are women settling because they believe they should just feel lucky if someone…anyone…loves them?

I can speak to this topic because I was one of these women. At a young age, I believed I should be lucky just have a man like me – and really, beggars can’t be choosers. So I suffered through a relationship that made me miserable, married a person I, in hindsight, never really loved, and all the while wondered why I was A) miserable an B) an absolutely terrible partner for this man. I mean, hadn’t I won the lottery? I picked the last flower and it said, “Loves me.” Wasn’t that enough?

Now, years later, I see my friends and family members doing exactly what I did – settling. Trying to  make a relationship work with men that really don’t fit their lifestyle or criteria just to avoid being…oh, god….alone. Trust me, I understand this. Going through a nasty divorce and then becoming what I like to call a professional dater gave me many a night to be nastily lonely. I get it.

But without sounding too preachy, it does happen. All those things you’re trying to make that guy be…and he’s not. You can find them in someone else. And you will. If your heart is open and you stop picking the petals off the flower wishing for this mystery man to love you. Don’t settle. You deserve the love you’ve always wanted. Don’t settle. Ladies, you deserve the best…not any smaller version of it.