Can you really find "the one"?

[Tinydance]

Do you think it really is possible to find someone you're truly in love with? I know a couple of people that found that but I've also heard some people say that they just settled for someone they only liked or had some feelings for. But then would you eventually tire of that person if you don't really love them?

[mhowe]

Yes it is possible.

 

I have found "the one" and cannot picture my life without him in it. And after 5 years, that feeling continues to grow stronger, not weaker.

[Man with Dog]

Do you think it really is possible to find someone you're truly in love with? I know a couple of people that found that but I've also heard some people say that they just settled for someone they only liked or had some feelings for. But then would you eventually tire of that person if you don't really love them?

 

I think it is OK to settle for someone when dating but it is not always fair to the person you are dating if they develop deeper feelings and you don't. Yes, you DO tire of that person if you don't really love them. However, don't UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES marry, move in with or get engaged to someone you are settling for and, if possible, do not pretend that you have any intention of being exclusive with them long term.

 

I guess I was never THAT experienced in relationships, never having had a proper one until my mid-20s BUT you can tell the difference around the 3-6 months phase. The "honeymoon" has worn off and if you have enough as a couple after that, it shows good promise but if you start getting bored, it is time to think about letting each other go. Unfortunately, what frequently happens is that one of you will be in love and the other will not and that's where a lot of posts on sites like this comes from.

[lostandhurt]

Yes it is possible but you have to know what YOU want before you can find it.

 

Many people simply do not know what they want. Once you know what you want for your life then finding the "ONE" becomes doable. If you settle then what happens when the next shiny object walks by? Yup, you go after it.

 

For me once I make that choice I am all in and build from there. There are more than just one the "ONE" for each of us out there because it is what you make it. Being happy and content with what you have is the key.

 

Lost

[ChiBrunette]

I believe so.

 

But with that comes knowing what you want. Knowing what you can and cant handle/accept.

 

I have my "one".

We fight, we disagree on things, he picks on me and I pick back.

 

But at the end of the day, we're also that loving couple that while we've been through our fair share of drama and we've conquered many an obstacle (including a woman randomly showing up and claiming she was pregnant with his baby lol - wasn't his. Turned out he was one of a handful of ex's she targeted) - but my point is...

 

The one isn't a fantasy - its two adults working together, building something indestructible... its a willingness to face the bad so that you can have the good.

 

J and I have faced ugly. My brain, his crazy exs - job loss, you name it - we've faced it. But we faced it together, hand in hand.

 

We aren't settling, we're both at a place where we know that the other loves unconditionally. We trust, we love, we are truly best friends. I know secrets and he knows secrets that we've never shared elsewhere.

 

At the end of the day, I cant imagine life without him. He makes me laugh, he makes me feel safe, and I do a whole bunch for him that balances it all out (:

 

Its there... but you have to know what you want, accept that there will be storms, and be prepared to face them alongside that other person.

 

Theres no running away because things are "too hard". Theres only standing strong, facing the storm, and gripping that other persons hand while shouting, "Bring it on".

 

And when the good comes... well you just embrace and enjoy (:

[gdgfx]

Ofcourse you can!

What people don't believe these days is what society doesn't want them to believe. We are now a world that is governed by social media, by values that are inherited through the depths of social conformity. We are told that we should be disposable, and that we should buy certain things, be a certain purpose and that love is dead and sex and being hip rules on. It's not as fashionable as it used to be to be in love these days. A lot of children grow up with the belief that settling for less is best, westernised culture as a whole focuses now on things that we don't really need. You'll find people going out now and getting drunk on a weekend, only because it's the 'cool' thing to do, not many would do it if anyone did it. And so, it's social conformity and a bubble that we all live in where love is not possible because there are other things out there.

 

The truth is, love is entirely possible but it's no walk in the park. Don't expect the first guy/girl you bump into, to be the man/woman you love for the rest of your life. True love is rare, because it's REAL. And obviously if you compare fricative relationships that are based on social acceptance; guys getting with girls because the girl has loads of Facebook friends and because she's into fashion and other guys like her compared to real love that doesn't judge a man/woman on her social conformity, doesn't judge a man/woman on external shallow attributes but actually what runs DEEP within them, the person they are that surpasses all surface structures and forms a more genuine absolute picture, like you would expect it to do. Love isn't cultivated or engineered, love is natural, it's an affinity to bind with someone because you want nothing more but to stand by them, care for them and love them and that comes naturally, it's an inbuilt mechanism in us all that will be triggered through time and experience in our lives.

 

The difference is, today... love has been reworded and changed around. Love doesn't represent the things it used to do. Love is ignored, and people tend to go from one person to another, sleep with loads of people and then wonder why, oh why, they've never been happy. Love is the sign of success, the sign of warmth, the sign of security, the sign of trust and compassion, the sign of integrity and strength. It's something so special that people don't want to believe it, because... they've never really been in love through their mistakes, their wrong turns in life, through denial or whatever other reason. Love is REAL when it is REAL, when you can honestly say, deep down in the maturest, clearest way that you belong to that person emotionally and spiritually, that your feelings are based entirely on the depths of a person, going so far as to love the very existence of someone, their entire fabric of their being. It's a very spiritual and emotional ability. And to love requires effort and patience and the right mindset.

 

It's a very complex thing to explain because, well, it's what makes us. And it's hard to explain the very core of anything that makes us, because after all, we are just stardust, minerals and water on this planet living our lives out. It's choosing to live your life and come to terms with reality and be the very person you want someone to love. You can never tire of love, think about the many elders that have passed who had marriages that span 60 years, even longer. Love is the ULTIMATE sacrifice, it's life and death, it's offering yourself, your values, your very existence to the one person who you want to spend the rest of your life with. That is love.

 

But today, you'd be told different. Because the world as a whole has become poisoned by the demise of a healthy, well balanced structure of existence. Capitalism for example, a system based on class-structure, on basically living to earn as much money as you can and being a slave to labour and government and super organisations and people believe this stuff, and put it in their heads and in their children's head that you have to be someone with all these attributes to live a successful life, so if you can imagine, what happens to the fruits of our nature and the soft gentle caring aspects of our existence then, it's all but removed when all we want to do is earn as much money, create wars and create bloodshed for the belief that it was meant to be, to destroy people's life with a business model and an economic strategy that makes the poor poorer and the rich richer, governments that lie to us and cheat and manipulate, a world that is culturally segregated, a place now where you are a number on a system. The way we live today has massively affected the way our society operates and because of that, love is now no more than a word that describes something that doesn't seem real because it can't be visualised until you've been in that very same situation yourself, and not many people have, because they chase the ideals and beliefs of a group and not themselves, they want to chase something that has been programmed into them.

 

Love is detaching yourself from everyone else, from all that binds you to a system, a way of life and being able to release yourself from that and bind yourself to a person that if equally, feels the same, will be there for the rest of your life. Now, that is REAL. Having a million pounds might make you rich and successful in many ways, but love? If you can say you've spent your life with the man/woman of your dreams, held each other and binded with each other through thick and thin, throughout life, grew old together and departed this life together, that's worth more than a 6 figure bank account, that's worth more than mansions and yachts because when you die, what do you have left? NOTHING. You have... NOTHING. But if you have love, then you die in love and you die, loved. And that's what human existence is all about, finding that one person and dying with that one person like life is meant to be.

 

And that's why, or so I believe anyway, this world is done for in more ways than one. Because people have forgot the true values of life in a desperate race to be someone, something and take ownership of a way of life that has been forged and developed for a purpose or through the negligence of a person who cares for nothing but ignoring the natural path of man, and that's to love, to care for, to nurture, to reproduce and to die.

[Man with Dog]

I tend to think not so much in terms as "The One" but "The Few". I've no doubt that I'd rather be with my wife than any other woman I have ever known. Like others have said, it isn't always bliss and around 10 years ago, our lives as individuals and as a family were all in a very bad place. That we were all (including our daughter) in bad places individually, damaged our relationships with each other.

 

Maybe there's a few girls around who I could have had a proper loving relationship with but I've never met them. I was once with "Miss Almost But Not Actually Quite Right" for a while and these can be very hard to tell from a genuine "Miss Right". Also it is possible to hand mind-blowingly good sex with someone who you have feelings for but do not truly, madly, deeply love and, again, it takes experience to know the difference.

[Tinydance]

I guess what I'm thinking though is that do most people just settle for Mr./Miss "Good Enough"? I'm sure you can find someone right for you, but the chances just seem small and you do see many people married with kids. Could it be possible that they just settled with someone they only liked, so they could have a family etc.?

[t1lersm0m1]

Someone on this site told me, and I think it's true - that when you find someone who fits, things will just be easy. But I also agree there isn't just ONE "the one" there are many the ones. If there was only ONE, what would our chances of finding them be like?

[mhowe]

I dated from my mid 20's to my late 40's.....and wasn't looking for "the one". Each person I was with taught me much about relationships and myself and this

thing we all call "love".

 

There isn't only one person who will bring you love. Nor one person you will share love with.

[Batya33]

I guess what I'm thinking though is that do most people just settle for Mr./Miss "Good Enough"? I'm sure you can find someone right for you, but the chances just seem small and you do see many people married with kids. Could it be possible that they just settled with someone they only liked, so they could have a family etc.?

 

I think there are infinite variation of what "the one" or "a good match" feels like and what it is like in reality. I remember about 10 years ago my friend found her "one" while I was struggling with doubts in my on again off again relationship. She said "oh, just marry him and have a child and then you can always divorce him". I was completely appalled that anyone would suggest this and I thought it was easy for her to say since she had so clearly found her one-she was over the moon about him. They got married, I ended things with on-off again guy and I met my "one" about 6 months later (although I don't believe there is just one. For me it was a combination of head and heart but no I did not settle. After 9 years of marriage she had an affair (he is no prize though as far as how he treated her) and he filed for divorce.

 

I do think that it's too risky to start out with "I'll just settle" but it's also risky to base your entire decision to marry on "I am head over heels and it feels so right -he is THE ONE!". As our religious officiant asked us when we met with him a few weeks before our wedding "do you like hanging out together? I know you love each other so I'm not going to ask you that - but do you like each other?". He was happy to hear we both liked watching Seinfeld reruns. Far more important to him than whether we were "soulmates".

[mhowe]

Batya is right --- shared values, sense of humor, etc.....are HUGE.

 

There is so much that goes into what is truly a great match --- and while chemistry is integral, it isn't everything. I have had amazing chemistry with a bf,

and the relationship expired within 9 months. The chemistry didn't die ---- but my respect for him did (complete lack of ambition).

[t1lersm0m1]

I think a big problem is - and I have been guilty of this in the past - is too many people in life, especially on these boards, try to make their current partner into their ideal partner, rather than trying to take the time to find someone who would be a good fit. I can't count the number of threads that get started where someone is with the wrong partner, and doesn't want to hear the fact that they need to end it. Instead, they want to figure out how to change their partner.

 

It take a lot for someone to want to change. And with that said, a lot of people don't change. When they finally do, it's for them, not for someone else.

[gdgfx]

There isn't only one person who will bring you love. Nor one person you will share love with.

 

I personally think that's entirely dependent on the relationship that you have.

Family brings love like no other form, it's family, a natural instinct to stick with your own. You can't compare the love for family like you compare the love for friends or for someone you are married too. I believe it's completely different types of relationships. You may love friends but you don't love your friends like you love the person you spend the rest of your life with. Just like you may love an ex-partner, but you don't love your ex-partner equally and in the same context as you love the partner you may be with now. Different depths, different situations, different relationships.

[mhowe]

I wasn't comparing familial love with romantic love, nor the love you share with a friend.

[IAmFCA]

"The One", "Soul Mate"... these phrases create an image - a hologram almost - of some mythical being.

 

Love is one of those gifts that multiplies. The more we practice it, the more we offer it, the more of it we find in our own lives. Choosing a life partner is a choice much bigger than love - values, vision, goals, habits, paradigms... so much wraps into it. There are many more people we can love, romantically, than there are people with whom we can successfully build a satisfying life.

 

To find The One, we need to be The One for ourselves. Along the way, we find many Fix Its who match what is broken within ourselves. We match like a puzzle, and then we fix the thing that needs fixing, and now, the puzzle piece has changed shape and the match chafes where it used to fit.

 

To find The One, fix the stuff that stands between who you are at your most basic level, and how you present to others. Become the most authentic you possible. Revel in it. Then, the concept of The One will no longer become mythical. It will just be a person who sees you, and enjoys you, in a way that feels incredibly familiar. Why? Because when you became authentic, you allowed yourself to be visible.

[mhowe]

^^^Absolutely spot on brilliant.

 

Yes --- the fix it's help us figure out what WE need to fix. And each time we enter/leave a relationship, we hopefully acquire one more piece to the puzzle.

 

It wasn't until I took a several year hiatus from dating/relationships that I found/secured/nutured my relationship with ME....who had somehow gotten lost

over the years. And became, for the first time --- the Authentic Me.

 

And one of the first things my bf told me was: "You just seem so happy ---with your life, with yourself"

[gdgfx]

I wasn't comparing familial love with romantic love, nor the love you share with a friend.

 

Okay so there isn't only one person who brings you love then others will. And others will be your friends, family and your other special people in your life, right? Or are we ignoring all those aspects and talking about something that doesn't correspond to the topic itself because I'm confused as to how you can say you are not talking about comparing love when you clearly are, by saying that more than one person will love you and you will share love with more than one person that then, that correlates to exactly what I were saying in the first place.

[gdgfx]

And I also disagree with the whole sharing love with more than one person, in a sense, yes you do, but that relays back to what I was saying in the first place but it's very possible to be a person who desires marital monogamy and you find many people who only have one relationship, one REAL relationship, don't have sex, don't get that far with the others and so, these other relationships aren't REAL, compared to the one relationship they have for the rest of their life and so yeah, you can pretty much only love one person and only person truly love you in that sense.

[mhowe]

I was speaking of relationships --- romantic relationships.

 

And you may have a first love --- in Highschool or college. And you will believe that it is the "real thing". And it is --- based on your knowledge of love.

And then you break up.

 

And you fall in love again. And it lasts for years....and you break up.

 

And you may marry....and promise a love that lasts forever. And have children. And divorce.

 

 

And all of that has nothing to do with your family members and your love for them --- or your friendships and your love for them.

But that love is not "romantic" love.

[mhowe]

And I also disagree with the whole sharing love with more than one person, in a sense, yes you do, but that relays back to what I was saying in the first place but it's very possible to be a person who desires marital monogamy and you find many people who only have one relationship, one REAL relationship, don't have sex, don't get that far with the others and so, these other relationships aren't REAL, compared to the one relationship they have for the rest of their life and so yeah, you can pretty much only love one person and only person truly love you in that sense.

 

I disagree.

 

But you are entitled to disagree with me as well.

 

It doesn't matter what "others" say or believe with regard to your love. The only opinion that matters is yours.

[IAmFCA]

Sex does not equate to love.

 

If I marry once, I may have loved others before choosing my marital partner. If I have sex only within the context of marriage, does that mean I did not love the ones who came before? Of course not.

 

I am speaking only of romantic love. I can name who I have loved in my life, and my intimacy for them, for how I see them, has never left me. I discovered this recently, at a high school reunion, where I saw the first person I loved, for the first time in 30 years. I did not want him, pine for him, feel anything for him other than appreciation as one would, but I could not look at him without seeing his soul. I felt disrespectful to his awesome wife, so I talked to her instead of talking to him as much.

 

I was not meant to marry him, though he asked me and I declined. I loved him, surely, and as people say, if he called on me for something, I would give it. I loved again, years later, and again I have the same response now. The intimacy of knowing the essence of someone remains, even though the desire to marry never existed.

 

I will never, ever believe that we love only one.

 

Maybe you are saying when we pick our best match, that we feel a singular love for that person? I can agree with that, but I will not ever call it the only instance of love in one's life. It just isn't true.

 

And I also disagree with the whole sharing love with more than one person, in a sense, yes you do, but that relays back to what I was saying in the first place but it's very possible to be a person who desires marital monogamy and you find many people who only have one relationship, one REAL relationship, don't have sex, don't get that far with the others and so, these other relationships aren't REAL, compared to the one relationship they have for the rest of their life and so yeah, you can pretty much only love one person and only person truly love you in that sense.

[smittybette9]

It is possible to find someone you are compatible with if you are willing to put in the work and to allow yourselves to grow both independently and as a couple.

[gdgfx]

I was speaking of relationships --- romantic relationships.

 

And you may have a first love --- in Highschool or college. And you will believe that it is the "real thing". And it is --- based on your knowledge of love.

And then you break up.

 

And you fall in love again. And it lasts for years....and you break up.

 

And you may marry....and promise a love that lasts forever. And have children. And divorce.

 

 

And all of that has nothing to do with your family members and your love for them --- or your friendships and your love for them.

But that love is not "romantic" love.

 

But not at all, you are 54 years old and have had multiple relationships so your opinion is based solely on YOUR experience as a person defined by your memories and your decisions and the way your life panned out. It doesn't mean to say that anyone else is going to 'love someone' for a certain amount of years and then break up, and then marry someone else and have children and divorce. See, that is where your experience becomes your negativity, becomes the part of you that separates you from the reality of love because you've experienced it this way, you feel it's the right way. My grandparents have been married for nearly 60 years, they have had a child being my father and my father married and has been married for the best part of 30 years I believe, not too sure, but it's somewhere along those lines. My father had brief relationships before he met my mother but never LOVED anyone specifically, and he LOVES my mother and she LOVES him. So where does YOUR logic fit into the general populus?

 

If fits into the experiences YOU have experienced and not a general rule of thumb or a guideline to living life or loving people. Perhaps you made mistakes in your life, met the wrong people, made wrong decisions, does that mean that everyone else is destined for the same path? Your answer is biased entirely, judgemental and incorrect because you have a philosophy that was engineered by your own doing, by what you went through, and doesn't correspond or simulate any sort of genuine evidence as what love is in the first place. Maybe you have resentment and bitterness, after all, you are what your environment makes you.

 

If anything, it's slightly poisonous and disencouraging to hear people say "Oh you wont be together forever, you'll find someone else, marriage never lasts!" Marriage never lasted for YOU. Go and speak to the many people who have married all their lives, who are reaching to end of life and have never divorced and have had a happy content life, that's what love is. That's the undamaged, true form of love that is natural because it takes it's own natural path in life, and it's beautiful and amazing...

 

Your view is of destruction and torment, anger and bitterness. And that's not a fact, that's an experience and should not be formed as anything else, other than, an opinion.

Love is, and will always be shared through your family, your friends and the person you use to spend forever with. If you are worried you won't spend forever with them, keep looking and try damned harder! Love is real if you are real in finding love, typical scenarios... having sex days, if not weeks into a relationship. Way to go! You crushed the only amazing sort of intimacy and connection with someone that involves such acts so early on, now what? Rushing into a relationship, not spending months and even years dating each other.. Well done! You're now in a relationship where technically, once the dust settles, you know not what you have done or the person you have taken on because you've ignored everything that is real like getting to know a person, making the RIGHT decision, having faith and generally not setting yourself up to fail.

 

Love is love. It's amazing, and believe me, I've had it pretty damned hard in my life but I don't carry the negativity and sadness and bitterness and tell everyone to never love their family, to never trust anyone and make people believe that life is polygamous and running from person to person has to happen and everyone will be sad, be divorced, go through all that, because that's the opinions of but a few, and the voice of someone who cannot share the reality of life because reality was maybe crushed for them a long time ago. Well, I've been crushed and I'm still here telling you and anyone else that listens, love does exist, go out and find it and when you do find it, hold it and cherish it and don't let it go and chances are, you'll be happy for the rest of your life.

 

If life many years ago involved one-time relationships that spanned an entire lifetime, and we are only going back maybe 100 years ago, if not that, then why suddenly, now in today's generation is it not possible to be in love for the rest of your life? Because people don't have a clue how to live their life, they fall under the thumb of this negative approach to life, a belief that is engineered by a society that cannot cope with the reality of love, doesn't want to accept it and won't accept it... because A) They've never been in love or B) They just aint strong enough to make something work for the long run..

 

Welcome to the disposable, socially un-educated, disbelieving society of this generation. Where good old fashioned romance doesn't exist anymore. And the poison of failure is all but apparent.

[mhowe]

Being compatible is a factor. But you can't go from compatible plus working at the relationship = love.

 

Love is, at its core, about the mystery of the connection. And may also be why it is so elusive.

 

Someone can check all the boxes....and yet...."meh".

 

I have a friend G....whom I love as a great friend (he is male). He is handsome, athletic, successful. I enjoy his company.

And yet --- I have zero desire for him.