Finding ‘the one’

I was asked by a young thing, as in a 17 year old, whether or not it could be possible that she’d found ‘the one‘. She’s in love, it seems, with a 22 year old gentleman. I don’t know him beyond the excessively rosy picture she paints of him, but he sounds ok, I guess.

Had she found ‘the one‘?

Hmmmm. How can anybody truly know?

I speak as a man with less years to go to my death than the years I’ve journeyed since my birth, and as a man who has been convinced on too many occasions that he has found ‘the one‘. I don’t remember much about my feelings at the time, but I’d guess I must have thought I’d found ‘the one‘ each time.  What a stupid arse.

What nobody tells you is that you are constantly growing. Maybe that’s maturing, I don’t know. But, you are constantly changing. You don’t realise it but you are a totally different person to whom you were 30 years ago, and subtly different to whom you were 30 days ago. If ‘the one‘ you found is changing in the same manner, such that their requirements can be constantly met by the new you, then excellent.

This means that you can spend your lifetime together and grow old happily ever after.

There are a very few folks who come into this category. They are amazingly cute, and worthy of a genuine, “Ahhh.”

However, by far the greater majority of ‘coupling’ is only good for a few years. It ends either in separation / divorce or it ends with the couple staying together but hating each other.

This staying together will be because they’ve nowhere to go. To separate would mean losing the house, the ‘things’, the ‘stuff’, and quite frankly, it’s a lot more of a hassle than searching for happiness. And, if they’ve been together for a goodly while, there’s the problem with ‘breaking the habit’ and ‘what about the children?’ It is a scary process, so no wonder so many couples are together but hate every moment of it.

I think this is what leads to the Andy Capp style loathing of each other that turns into a parody and makes the rest of us laugh. It’s sad really.

In contrast, when people talk at me about ‘her indoors’ with their eyes flicking to the sky, I find it sad. Is that what their ‘marriage’ amounts to?

Jeez. Get out. Walk away. Get a life. Don’t put up with living the lie.

When I look back on my embarrassing catalogue of failed relationships, the only comfort I have is that, although I usually ended up losing everything materially and had to start all over again, it was better to be free from the pain than have to live it like a prisoner with no chance of release. This is what leads to depression and suicide, I’m sure.

So convinced was I that I’d found ‘the one‘ at the beginning of each of my relationships, that it always came as a shock when the reality kicked in that I hadn’t.

Then, I did, through completely bizarre and unusual, once in a lifetime, circumstances, find ‘the one‘. Late in life I found the person I really feel differently with. For whatever reason, we completely balance each other. We both feel a need to be together. We both miss each other when we are apart. From time to time this ‘dependence’ on each other leaves either both or one of us feeling a little ‘lost’ and emotional. So none of those ‘her indoors’ stories from me as I head to the pub to stay away from home for as long as possible. Nope, for me, and for her, it’s get back to each other as soon as we can.

We’ve been together for a very goodly few years now. Yes, there are times when we annoy or upset each other, but as a percentage this is tiny. For 99% of our time we feel secure and comforted by each other in a way that seems to make life worth living.

I don’t know if I had to go through the learning of failed relationships in order to shape me to be the person she needed to be ‘the one‘, or if the things that happened in her life were needed in order to grow her to be ‘the one‘ that fitted me. It’s possible that we both needed ‘history’ in order to shape us to be ‘the one‘ for each other, but there are times I regret that I had to live such a huge, long and lonely part of my life before finding ‘the one‘. But, hey, we still have some time left before one of us goes senile or gets run over by a bus, and that’s the time we live for.

I don’t know if the young girl asking me if she’d found ‘the one‘ has found ‘the one‘. It’s unfair to dismiss young love, first love, just as it’s unfair to dismiss older love. It’s probably also not fair of me to sound so smug and egotistical when recounting my own happiness and contentment.

All I know is that when you truly find ‘the one‘ you know. It’s very different to whatever went before. Time passes and life gets more exciting, comfortable, happy and enriched as every minute together ticks by. If you are lucky enough to find ‘the one‘ at 17, and this girl might well have, then how brilliant that surely is. If she has, then I am jealous of the length of life ahead for them to enjoy together, compared to that which excitedly remains for me.