How to Settle (or not)

Darlings, Pretty Lady must be quite, quite serious with you this morning. For it strikes her that in the Matrimonial Wars, a lot of people are getting away with hyperbole and half-truths, brought on, no doubt, by a lack of guidance from Experienced Elders. Pretty Lady is not quite an Elder, yet, but the one thing she does have is Experience. And so she will share it with you, in an attempt to prevent some of you from making Terrible Mistakes.

On the one hand, we have a bit of pragmatic advice from a lady who made the hyperbolic and quixotic decision to while away her wait for Prince Charming by becoming a Single Mother, on purpose, with a Sperm Donor. Thus we understand that this person's nature is already given to extremes:

My advice is this: Settle! That’s right. Don’t worry about passion or intense connection. Don’t nix a guy based on his annoying habit of yelling “Bravo!” in movie theaters. Overlook his halitosis or abysmal sense of aesthetics. Because if you want to have the infrastructure in place to have a family, settling is the way to go. Based on my observations, in fact, settling will probably make you happier in the long run, since many of those who marry with great expectations become more disillusioned with each passing year.

And then we have the predictable Idealist Backlash:

At this point, you realize the entire article is reactionary bullshit the author herself doesn’t believe. How do I know? If she really thinks that being married to a closeted gay man who exchanges housework for her willingness to pretend she doesn’t know what he does on weekend nights, then she would go husband-hunting at her local ex-gay meeting. If you want to be a beard, then there’s an easy, quick, no-nonsense solution for you. I don’t see how it couldn’t work.

Now, now, everybody. Settle down. Pretty Lady means it.

For it strikes her that here we have a classic case of ill-defined terms. Our underlying assumptions regarding these terms may be vastly different; moreover, our experience with reality may encompass similar extremes. On top of it all, Pretty Lady has noticed a distressing tendency in modern society to treat other human beings as mere shopping-mall commodities; as interchangable appendages of Image and Status, and not as the unique package-deal phenomenae that each and every one of us are.

So let us get a few things straight.

First of all, as you well know, Pretty Lady has many times experienced that passionate high, that luminous miracle, that overwhelming compulsion commonly referred to as True Love. She is intimately familiar with the instantaneous familiarity, the roseate view, the suspension of time and physics which accompanies it; she has explored its channels and vicissitudes from haloed beginning to apocalyptic end, time and again.

And she is certain of one thing: This feeling has nothing to do with actual love. It is a strong indication that the object of one's passion has triggered an unhealed Issue in one's psyche, which requires addressing in order to achieve genuine emotional maturity.

This is not to say that one should shun this feeling of True Love, or refuse to explore it. It is merely to say that things are bound to end badly. Be certain to take notes on why that should be, and how to do better next time.

Second of all: if you are the sort of person who sees no ethical problem with dumping a person with whom you have excellent conversation, compatible values, and decent chemistry, simply because you think you can do better, you are a jerk and an asshole and deserve to die alone and forgotten. See above, viz. the commodification of actual human beings. It is narcissistic and disgusting to treat another person as merely a vehicle for the aggrandizement of one's ego; it is a particularly noxious form of parasitism which states, 'well, he's fine for the time being, but I really couldn't consider marrying anyone who wasn't richer/better looking/funnier/more adventurous in bed.'

Ladies, we have a word for the fellow who tells you, "You're nice and all that, but you really need to lose a few pounds." If we expect Equal Rights, we must take equal responsibility for not being Total Pigs.

So: when a person with actual integrity is deciding whether to Settle for her current swain, or to continue trolling the deeps for her soulmate, it is PARAMOUNT to understand that you are not choosing between Mr. Present Tense and Mr. Future Perfect. You are choosing between Mr. Present Tense and being ALONE.

As Pretty Lady's friends know, she once made this painful and difficult choice. The potential partner in question was, really, a dream come true--handsome, wealthy, debonair, adventurous, and inherently monogamous. He also had a quite splendid extended family, with whom Pretty Lady fell collectively in love, and passionately wanted children, who would, of course, be raised on two or three continents simultaneously, surrounded by loving family and friends.

It is important to understand that Pretty Lady did not feel that she could do better than this man. In fact, she was quite convinced that if she left him, she would undoubtedly do worse.

However, looking ten years down the projected line, Pretty Lady saw her future self, and she did not like what she saw. She saw a frustrated, passive-aggressive person who would be unable to constrain herself from doing things which would cause herself and her family great harm. The fact is, she and her paragon were simply not compatible, and something indelible inside Pretty Lady knew it.

So, in order to spare him this travesty, Pretty Lady called it off. Remaining with him for pure social and financial advantage would have been inexcusably selfish. In fact, he found a genuinely compatible lady, and due to Pretty Lady's honest communication and heartfelt recommendation, lived happily ever after. Pretty Lady wrote him a thank-you note for being such a splendid boyfriend, and he wrote her a similar encomium.

And as it happens, having honestly dealt with her Issues, Pretty Lady didn't have to settle for eternal solitude, after all.

So it seems to Pretty Lady that there are varying degrees of Settling, and the author of this article lumps them all in together, willy-nilly. Pretty Lady will enumerate her personal list of Unacceptable Traits in a Matrimonial Partner, which obviate settling of any kind, and automatically strike the person from the lists:

1) Do not marry someone who is gay. Not even if you were molested as a child, and thus find your spouse's sexual revulsion toward yourself to be vaguely reassuring. You will be bound to feel abandoned, creeped out and despondent when he inevitably disappears into the next room with a 'friend.'

2) Do not marry an alcoholic or a drug addict.

3) Do not marry someone who is severely mentally ill.

4) Do not marry a philanderer.

5) Do not marry a compulsive gambler, or who otherwise demonstrates flagrant financial irresponsibility.

Beyond these obvious no-nos, the only necessary traits in a spouse, according to Pretty Lady's rock-bottom list, are:

1) Good conversationalist. You will be conversing with this person, if all goes well, for the rest of your life; make sure you're not bored.

2) Compatible values. This includes values regarding sex, money, and personal responsibility. It is no good marrying a chatty, engaging polyamorist if you are fundamentally monogamous.

3) Decent chemistry. Earthshattering fireworks are not required, but do not marry someone who repulses you. This sort of thing pushes normal everyday conflicts over the top, rather than assisting in resolving them.

If these three items are full and present in your relationship, you are not Settling at all. You are Sensible and Mature. Please reproduce, now.