January 20, 2005

• It's just bullshit. Don't worry about it, don't let other people get into your head & dictate your reality according to their script. Focus on the moment, enjoy the moment; it won't happen again. Fuck 'em, fuck 'em all. Do whatever you have to do to stay happy with your person. Be mindful. I hate it when people try to put those ideas into my head. In every case, they were all wrong. 15 years with me' missus & counting, I don't know if we ever 'settled' or whatever that is, but I'm a damn sight happier than I'd ever be on me' own. In fact I would be dead by now. So whatever settling is, it's worth it. IMHO.
• To me, settling means giving in, in a way. I have an idea in my head of the type of person I'd like to spend the rest of my life with. I feel that I'm realistic in the type of person I'm looking for (doesn't have to be rich, a knight in shining armour, look like Brad Pitt, etc.) but if I look for a long period of time and then meet someone who has some but not all of the qualities I'm looking for, and if I'm tired of looking, I might "settle" for this person. It's a trade off - this guy makes me happy and we have things in common and I love him, and even though there might be someone else out there who I'd be happier with, I'm tired of dating and ready to have a family so I'll just stick with him. I think this differs from making compromises. To me a compromise means you are giving something up but the person you are giving it up for is totally worth it, and you know he/she is giving up something else in return. When you settle, you may not always feel like that person is giving up something to be with you. I don't know if you can ever really know if you are settling, but I'd think that if you feel a certain sense of resignation about the relationship as a whole, that would be your first clue. Compromise is about the little things, settling is about the whole enchilada. On preview: Sorry for the long post! I'd probably be more concise if I wasn't tired. : )
• you don't always know when you're settling. that's the annoying part. If you have to ask, what is settling and how do you know when you're doing it, then yes, you MIGHT be settling.
• Snooz is pretty close, but I think "settling" means "this person is someone I like" (more than "I love this person even if he/she's not perfect") but no-one else even close to an ideal has asked for a relationship, so I'll take what I can get and do the best I can to make what I settled for good. The advantage is that one enters it with eyes wide open. The disadvantage is that one can be too detached to make a settled-for realtionship work.
• I settled for "realtionship."
• If it makes you happy, stay in the game. If you think it has the potential to make you happy, you may want to get out.
• It took me 5 years to propose to my first wife because I was unsure that she was The One. In other words, I didn't want to settle. Despite friends/family/her badgering me (good naturedly, but with serious undertones, of course), I held my ground for awhile, but eventually came to the conclusion I would lose her if I didn't marry her. Our marriage lasted 24 days. Cue the current Love Of My Life. Four and a half years of dating before I popped the question. Am I marrying her for the right reasons? Yes. I'm more sure of it than I am that the sun rises in the east. My point? Never settle. Ever. Ever.
• I've read some quite interesting scientific literature that correlates dissatisfaction directly with the belief that whatever choice you make, there is something better out there. All of the people I've seen who proclaim loudly that they won't "settle" (and who claim to have reasonable requirements, from their perspective) are nearly to a person unhappy, lonely, and perpetually frustrated romantically. "So and so just doesn't turn me on as much as person XYZ in my past did." "What if I commit to this person and the perfect person comes along right after?" That way lies madness.
• One person's settling may be another person's compromise. In my book, a healthy relationship requires the ability to compromise. But. If the compromise is on something major like wanting kids or fiscal responsibility, then I would be much more cautious. In what way do you feel as if you are settling?
• what itchy says... settling is staying with someone for reasons that gratify you other than that you love the person. maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but eventually, it will Eat. Your. Soul.
• mandyman: I don't _think_ I am settling, for one thing, I haven't proposed yet. On the other hand, the topic of settling come up (as a hypothetical) the other day and I realised that as a usually hard-headed person who doesn't believe in "the one", I might be missing something. I supposed I'm troubled by accounts of people who "just know" that someone is right for them, who have no doubt, and no regrets. I wonder if I'm just not one of those kind of people, but some other kind; or whether I ought to hold out for that sensation. I'm inclining to think holding out is a bad idea, especially because I don't see how you tell certainty from infatuation (a sensation which I know well, but am not experiencing right now). Also, I've been married (10 years) and divorced (4 years), and pretty much had all the things I used to believe about relationships disproved by experience. I don't know what I really believe, or what principles I have, any more. So I'm really interested in what other people believe, in case something really resonates for me.
• No idea what settling actually means, except in the context of someone who has predefined ideas of what their perfect person is, and under which circumstances they would be married. If you don't have those preconditions, you can't settle. There are, as in all things, two types of people: Maximizers and Satisficers(sp?). The Maximizers need to have everything perfect, and the Satisficers are happy with "good enough". You can be a Maximizer in one area and a Satisficer in another, incidentally. In any case, the Satisficers tend to be "happier" than the Maximizers. As a case example, a couple of friends of mine had some troubles due to a case of post-marriage Maximizing, commonly referred to as The Seven Year Itch (happened right at that point, too). If you think that Love is a certain feeling, and that feeling starts to go away with the person you married, but you start getting it with someone else, the Maximizer would say that they should be with the new person, rather than adapting to the new situation. Things change. Oh, incidentally, Joseph Campbell wrote that, before the Middle Ages, there was no such thing as Romantic Love. That was an invention of the Troubadors that kinda caught fire. Previously, marriages were all property transactions and Eros and Agape were the only types of love that people were really into. So I'm told. Anyways, long story short (too late!), just because someone else has certain standards, doesn't mean that will do you any kind of good. You might be able to find someone who is just like you, or was just like you, and discovered what they did. That would probably be your best bet.
• We all approach relationships differently. If you feel happy, then you probably are. For my own self, there is no "the one." There are people who get me and people who don't. And then there are the other circumstances that come with adult life that complicate relationships (finding a career, paying the bills, etc). A big part of my early twenties was figuring out that those other things mattered just as much to me. I have friends who "just know" and I'm happy for them when it works out, but my own emotions don't operate in such a way.
• Take off and nuke it from orbit. Only way to be sure.
• "Settling" is sort of like "being an alcoholic" -- if you think you are, you are.
• My best friend from HS knocked up a local girl and got married. Now they have 2 or 3 kids. In his mind (last we spoke) he was totally happy and had done the right thing. To me I looked at him and felt like The Chief when he saw jack lobotimized in "one flew over the cuckoo's nest." My point? People are often able to kid themselves into happiness. So was he "kidding himself" or was he actually happy, and I was the jerk for thinking he had ruined his life? Of course people are going to tell themselves they've found "the one" if thats what they need to hear from themselves to sleep at night. I'm sure my friend tells himself the one right girl for him just happened to live near us and just happened to be the girl he was silly enough not to use a condom with. As for myself, I think there must be 1000s of women in the world I could end up being happy with, given the right circumstances. On the other hand, I could be happy with just work, good friends and the occasional casual sex, or I think maybe I could. But I find the idea of "the one" a little silly. (if there's only one person for you, then logically there's a 1 in 6 chance s/he lives in China)
• 'Settling' is all about knowing what you want. Figure out what you actually want, what you truly want. This is not always easy, and requires some self-awareness. You might think you want grand sexual adventures, but what would actually make you happier is a good meal and a warm bed. Once you know what you want, then if you aren't convinced your relationship is giving it to you, then you may be settling. The may represents where it can get tricky. If what you really want is something nebulous such as Love, and you've never experienced Love, then how can you be convinced you've found it?
• I agree, more or less, with Nal, except I define settling in terms of needs rather than wants. We all have needs in relationships, and we all differ in what we need. Needs can be safety and security, passion, equality (or a defined heirarchy within the relationship), kids (or no kids), certain ideas about money, certain ideas about mind-altering substances, certain ideas about intimacy and affection. When your needs are not being met, you feel it, and you feel it deeply. When your needs are not being met, it's impossible to feel truly loved or appreciated, and it's impossible to feel content. It *is* possible to have wants unmet, and still feel loved and reasonably content. (For example, I'd want this person to be neater, but I need this person to be really affectionate and supportive.) So, if your needs aren't being met, you're settling. It has nothing to do with how "hot" your partner is, or what your friends think of them. (sorry for the length)
• My definition - When you're unhappy, you're settling. If you're making yourself be "happy," with quotation marks, that doesn't count. If you think you should be happy, that is not the same thing. Note - not perfect, not free of any trouble. Just happy. Content. There's a different between being content and staying put for other reasons - out of fear, or out of (in my case) feeling like an ingrate if things don't feel right. Will you know? I assume you'll know. Be honest with yourself, I guess. It has nothing to do with other people, how prestigious the partner is, or what's down the road, and everything to do with you and your partner and how you fit together. Are you happy? Then there's no problem.
• The only problem with that, Wur, is...what if you're a malcontent? One of my best friends walked away from seven years with the best thing that ever happened to him. A woman he surely didn't deserve, for what? Random flings with women who dug him more for his capacity to speak English without an accent than pretty much anything else. He's miserable now. She's miserable as well. He was happy, but he was always looking for "The better thing" and now, he's got nothing. Sometimes you may think you're settling when you're actually not.
• If you're a malcontent, you're not going to be happy no matter what you do, so... what does it matter whether you settle or not? (Rhetorically speaking.)
• That's the point. Some people don't know if they're malcontents. Sad but true...
• Sometimes you may think you're settling when you're actually not. I'd say that means that you're in no way ready for a long-term relationship, if that's the case.