I could do so much better.

A list of words describing relationships will include The Good:

+ loving, honest, devoted, a partnership

The Bad:

+ abusive, mismatched, infidelitous

And The Ugly.

+ she settled.

Any union including violence is abhorrent, and if contempt moves into the spare bedroom it's pretty much over. But settling has a quality all its own.

If we settle, we're in worse shape than one innocuous word implies. Settling tells the world that we could have done better. We ended up with the 1995 Honda Civic when we should be driving a showroom-new Lamborghini Gallardo Spyder - according to the voice in our head at least.

More than that, settling means that at one point we thought the Civic was the Lambo. The fact that we now see how blinkered we were is evidence of self-criticism verging on self-flagellation That leads to self-doubt about any further choices we make relationshipwise. That is not a winning formula.

And then there's the corrosive effect of looking at what we have right in front of us, and imagining what might have been. To me, that's the very worst element of thinking that we've settled because it combines the two deadly mindfuckers: regret for the past, and (irrational) imagining of the future. Between them, those two will suck all the life from us, stopping, as they do, the only thing we have.

Right now.






Photo of Humphrey and Lauren from here [link]

With thanks to Belle for the inspiration.