Nobody can ever be good enough when perfection is the standard

By David McElroy · April 27, 2022

I don’t know why the image came to my mind while I slept. I hadn’t seen the photo for years, but I immediately knew what it was.

We were somewhere in the Caribbean on a cruise. At sunset one evening, we were on an upper deck enjoying the colors and the wind and the waves. Someone offered to take a photo of us and snapped this impromptu image. And for some reason, my mind brought this old photo to my consciousness while I slept.

As I awakened — with this image burned brightly into my mind — I heard some words very clearly. In my sleepy state, I made a quick note on my iPhone:

“Nobody’s ever good enough if perfection is the standard.”

I knew what it meant. I also knew I would think about it a lot more later. But I felt a sense of peace about it as I went back to sleep. Something in my unconscious was trying — once again — to teach me a lesson. It wasn’t really about her, though. It was about me.

It was about my terror of not being perfect — and about how my fears have affected women who’ve tried to love me.

Gina was smart and beautiful. She was immensely talented — as a singer and actress — and she had a powerful personality that could light up a room. She was a very impressive woman. And she loved me very much. More than I deserved.

But I found reasons not to want her. The story is complicated — with a lot of twists and turns — but I never would really commit to her. And as I woke up last night with this image on my mind, I finally understood why. What’s more, I understood why I had seen this pattern multiple times with women who have loved me and wanted to build a future with me.

I found something wrong with each one of these women. I’m not saying I made things up which weren’t true. Each time it happened, I found the worst of each woman — and I used that accurate imperfection as an excuse about why I couldn’t commit to the woman who was trying to love me.

Each time I’ve done this, I’ve had moments when I realized the folly of what I’d done, but those moments never happened until it was too late for me to change things. I’ve sabotaged my relationships — for the most trivial of reasons at times — and I’ve hurt women who didn’t deserve to have their love rewarded with rejection.

For years, I’ve gone over and over the facts of my various relationships and tried to find a narrative which explained my feelings and my actions. I’ve understood bits and pieces of it, but I’m not entirely sure I was seeing the full truth — until last night when heard these words in my head:

“Nobody’s ever good enough if perfection is the standard.”

It all makes sense. I had to reject these women for their imperfections. Why? Because if I accepted the love of an imperfect woman, I would have to consciously accept how imperfect I am. And accepting myself as an imperfect man is intolerable to a deep part of me which is still terrified of being punished.

Does that mean all these women have been great matches for me when I’ve pushed them away? Not necessarily. Some of them would have been good matches. Others wouldn’t have been. It’s a mixed bag. But the truth is that I couldn’t allow myself to make an emotionally healthy decision about each one on her merits — because I was unconsciously hung up on facing my own imperfections.

I’ve known bits and pieces of this story, but it somehow made sense in a more powerful way last night. When I saw that old snapshot of Gina and me, I realized that I wasn’t fair to her — which I figured out long ago — but I also realized that I wasn’t fair to myself.

On a conscious level, I’ve always accepted that I’m not perfect. I know that nobody can be perfect. But my old programming — driven by a narcissistic father who never intended to damage me — leaves me struggling with those old fears of being punished for making mistakes.

My realization last night certainly wasn’t about any desire to reconnect with Gina. It’s more about understanding why I made the mistakes I made — with her and with others — and it’s about continuing to grow and change in ways that can allow me to make healthier decisions next time.

I’m never going to be perfect. Whoever is “the right partner” for me won’t be perfect, either. But I can’t accept her as imperfect without fully embracing my own imperfection.

I can’t do anything about the mistakes I’ve made, but I hope I’m constantly becoming a little wiser and a little smarter about how to make better decisions next time.

Life is complicated — and we all appear to be our own worst enemies at times.

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On a live awards show Sunday night, one man made a joke about a female celebrity. The husband of the celebrity was offended and hit the man who made the joke. Or maybe it was staged for entertainment. Who knows? Who cares? Social media is full of discussion — and even arguments — about this idiocy today. This baffles me. Let’s assume for a moment that the event happened as reported. People have been having such idiotic fights ever since there have been humans. Half the bars in the world see such brief dustups regularly. It simply doesn’t matter. The fact that so many people believe they need to talk about this — or even need to have opinions about it — is more evidence of the bizarre media brainwashing that convinces many to care passionately about brain-dead trivia. Your life will be happier and saner if you focus on yourself, your family and your friends, not on whatever scripted (or spontaneous) bilge that the media wants to pipe into your home.

I’m in the middle of migrating this website to new servers this week. This means you might encounter some unexpected behavior until I get all the bugs worked out. Clicking on my links (including this one) might cause your browser to give you the message that it’s a site without a current security certificate. It’s not actually unsafe, but there’s something which isn’t yet set up for the security certificate. I apologize for any such errors you might encounter while the process is going on. If you notice any problems with content which didn’t migrate properly, I would appreciate you letting me know the details at davidmcelroy@mac.com. Thanks for your patience.

I often wonder what animals think when they look at us and consider the society we’ve created. Yes, I know this is fanciful and unrealistic, but what if they could? Would they be astounded at how we treat each other? Would they be disgusted by the ugliness and pettiness which fill so many of our daily interactions? The truth is that I’m feeling pretty disgusted with humanity tonight. I made the mistake of reading some online interactions that I should have avoided — and it sickened me. The people involved appeared to be vile and stupid and arrogant. I wish I could pretend they’re a tiny minority, but I know better. It’s times such as this when I most need to escape much of “civilization” and disconnect from their world. If humans are going to be worthy of “ruling this planet,” we have a lot of growth to do. And I fear that growth is nowhere in sight. So my buddy Thomas, above, and all of his friends would be right to judge us harshly — and to think, “Why do you folks get to be in charge?”

I should have expected this, but I honestly didn’t. The article I wrote last week about disagreements over treatment for autistic children brought me angry emails. You could almost call it “hate mail.” Of the five emails about it so far, two have been to tell me that I’m wrong to even listen to critics of the most popular therapy for autistic children — and the other three tell me I’m wrong for not condemning the treatment as the “obvious” abuse it is. If you read the article, you know I didn’t take a position on the issue, because I simply don’t know enough to have an opinion. But by talking about the issue, I stepped into a heated controversy. The emails from the two sides convinced me of nothing. But they did give me even more empathy for the unfortunate parents who have to figure out for themselves where the truth lies for their children.

Have you ever had what you thought was a new idea — and then discovered that “old you” had the same idea years ago? I had that experience tonight. And it’s been wonderful. I came up with an idea tonight for a very short satirical film that would be a promotion for a fictitious college. The point is to make the college promote — as good things — everything which is actually terrible about most modern colleges. Then I remembered a fake college that I invented back when I was in college. I had created student recruitment brochures and various newsletters back then, so I decided to call my “new” college by the same name I’d invented years ago: Ochita College. As I searched my computer for any old material I might still have about Ochita from the past, I discovered an email I sent to someone in 2009 — outlining essentially the same idea which I came up with tonight. Since I didn’t remember writing that, it felt like magic. So my next film project just might be this one instead. If all goes well, you might soon see “Ochita College: Your Future Starts Here.” This should be fun.

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