Punching below your weight: How to find a keeper

I am sitting in a café, and next to me sits a couple, that any observer would count as being on very different ‘levels’.

This couple is around my age, maybe 5 years older and they have caught my attention because of a trend I’ve seen occurring over the last year – extremely mismatched couples. Or as some may put it, ‘punching below one’s weight’. That’s right, slumming it, not pulling the goods. It occurred to me that this is because we have reached ‘marrying age’, the ‘pressure zone’ as some may coin it. It is time to settle down and when I mean settle down, for some of us, that purely means to settle.

We’ve all experienced the gamut of relationships. Long distance, High School Sweetheart, Lust filled, dramatic, crazy, should have stayed as friends, long-term ….

I think we can all agree that the scariest relationship was the one where our partner was special. Attractive, smart, talented – all the things you ever wanted. Then came the day it ended, taking you forever to get over the heartbreak.

Could you go through that kind of heartache again? Hell no!

So you’re on the hunt for someone solid, dependable, probably not all that attractive to the opposite gender. Someone, who would give anything to marry you. Someone that felt so thankful to be with you that they would never stray.

Wow. How fucking depressing.

It seems that in the face of fear, you have decided to allow love to lose its importance, replacing it with the need for security, for the boring instead of the inspirational.

Let me fast forward. You’re now 50 with 3 great kids, living the same suburban experience as your parents and their parents before them, all because you couldn’t risk spending your 30’s alone.

STOP!

Don’t do it!

I know where you’re coming from. Yes, it is scary feeling thinking that you’re never going to find someone and that if you do, you better hold onto them because if you don’t, it may take even longer to find someone next time round.

It’s a race, didn’t you know?!

If you’re the lucky last of your friends to find love, bouquets are purposefully thrown your way at weddings and brunch conversations revolve around married friends sharing possible options with you, describing potential partners as having a ‘solid work ethic’ and being ‘upbeat and personable’.

A year of bliss vs 30 years of monotony?

I’d take the one year of bliss. It may seem like more of a gamble but the inspiration you feel from being with a partner you’re passionate about, the qualities you adopt when you’re with someone who makes you a better person, the smile that forever dances in your eyes when you’re truly happy, isn’t worth sacrificing thanks to some self-imposed deadline.

I’m not saying anyone is ‘better’ than anyone else. Some people are just a better fit. Don’t settle for anything less than that. Afterall, this isn’t just your 30’s you have to get through but the rest of your life.

Find a knockout. Life is too short to play it safe.