Category Archives: other half

A Perfect Circle

I was reading one of the books I bought this weekend, a work discussing happiness within relationships. And I realized what my problem is – the thing that is so wrong with me which makes me undesirable. Granted this is work of fiction, the woman describes marriage in terms of finding her other half.

It is not so much that I have never found my other half, but I have never actually sought it out, or had any desire for it. I think that is what drives men away. They are initially attracted to me, get to know me and realize I don’t have some sort of compulsion towards meshing. And then they leave.

I don’t fall in love and develop strange obsessions for their interests. I catalog them, keep in mind their likes and dislikes for future reference, but don’t take them on as my own. I am not referring to things we have in common, because that is kind of a prerequisite for any relationship to even get started, but I mean the little things, the personal interests that diverge. I have always thought of these interests as things to be acknowledge, but not necessarily adopted. Maybe that is my problem, I have never looked for a man as a missing puzzle piece, nor did I want to be his.

I have always been perfectly fine with having a man watch me dance (albeit not well) to Elton John without ever understanding why I am in love with Tiny Dancer. I just am.

Of course I spent the better part of my twenties obsessed with marriage and creating the perfect one, but at no point was I considering it as a way of finding my other self. Aside from things I already had in common with a man, or things to which he would introduce me and I actually took pleasure in, the idea of forming myself to his interests seemed wrong (says the single woman with four cats… a.k.a relationship guru extraordinaire… and perhaps cat whisperer).

Reading this book I am beginning to understand how unnatural I must seem. I see other women devoted to interests they never even knew they had, absolutely fascinated by whatever their men like. Then I see other women who don’t develop these interests genuinely, but they know how to keep a man, so they adamantly testify to loving his interests. I have never been good at that either.

Am I missing a gene? Wasn’t I supposed to be born with this innate desire to form a perfect circle with someone? Maybe I just need to be beaten around the edges.