{"id":25481,"date":"2018-08-28T22:06:18","date_gmt":"2018-08-29T03:06:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.davidmcelroy.org\/?p=25481"},"modified":"2020-02-11T01:08:52","modified_gmt":"2020-02-11T07:08:52","slug":"my-unconscious-choices-about-love-reveal-much-about-women-and-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/?p=25481","title":{"rendered":"My unconscious choices on love say much about women and me"},"content":{"rendered":"

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I fall in love only when I find the perfect woman.<\/p>\n

That will sound strange at best and dysfunctional at worst, because we all know there’s no such thing as a perfect woman (or a perfect man). So what exactly do I mean?<\/p>\n

For weeks, I’ve been pondering the question of what makes me fall in love with one woman when I have absolutely no feelings for one who might seem equally desirable. I’ve needed to understand the reasons, but my feelings had seemed random and hard to explain.<\/p>\n

Then I woke up around 4 a.m. Tuesday and I suddenly knew. My unconscious mind worked it out in my sleep, apparently. It’s not a perfect answer, but it’s a model of my emotional reality which makes sense to me. What’s more, I could insert every woman I’ve fallen in love with — which I can count on one hand — and the formula worked.<\/p>\n

I fall in love with a woman whose current reality — and future potential<\/em> — come closest to adding up to my idea of perfection. Because of this, my unconscious choices can tell you a lot about what I see in a woman and they can also tell you quite a bit about me.<\/p>\n

The first woman I fell in love with — many years ago, in college — was the picture of what I considered an ideal woman at the time. By the time we went our separate ways three years later, my ideas about what I wanted in a woman were far less traditional. This woman was a wonderful woman, but she would have been completely wrong for me — and I would have been wrong for her.<\/p>\n

As I move forward in time, I see that the women I’ve fallen for have been less traditional. They’ve been smarter and far more likely to just as driven for success as I was. All along the way, the one constant is that I’ve never fallen in love with a woman who I didn’t see as a very good mother. That’s probably the one things that’s never wavered in my requirements.<\/p>\n

No woman can live up to the ideal I make her in my mind. That’s something I’ve had to learn. I used to think I was falling in love only with what a woman was, but now I understand that I’m falling in love — at least partially — with what I see as her potential.<\/p>\n

Is that fair? I can’t say for sure. The thing I’m certain about is that I’m now clear on the difference between what I see in a woman’s present reality and what she has the potential to become. I haven’t always understood that and it led to me being disappointed in women — because their present reality could never match the vision of potential that seemed so obvious to me.<\/p>\n

I know now that I\u2019ll marry someone who\u2019s terribly imperfect. I have to be clear about that before the point comes when I realize how flawed she is, because every single person is hugely flawed. (Starting with me, of course.)<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t need or want perfection. I just want someone who I see as beautiful and smart and driven and loving and charming — among a dozen or so major criteria — who\u2019s working just as hard as I am on self-improvement. That’s the key.<\/em> If I encounter a woman who doesn’t want to grow — isn’t willing to grow and change — I will be bitterly disappointed and there’s no sense in pursuing her. I have to have a partner who’s driven to grow and change — who wants to be partners in growth and change with me.<\/p>\n

I never want to hear (and I never want to say), \u201cWell that\u2019s just the way I am. Get used to it.\u201d<\/em> That is the mark of someone who’s scared to grow and is unwilling to change. With that woman, I will always be disappointed by the gap between what she is and what she’s capable of being.<\/p>\n

The deal has to be that we accept each other as flawed people but we work on the flaws anyway. We grow and change together — and in doing so, we both become more of what the other needs.<\/p>\n

I now understand exactly why I’ve fallen in love with the women I’ve fallen for, both in the past and recently. I once wanted someone very traditional. I now want someone who’s a blend of some traditional elements — especially insofar as maternal instincts — and some very modern ones which could allow us to achieve things together that neither of us could achieve alone.<\/p>\n

I don’t know why something in my unconscious finally decided to explain all this to me, but when I woke up early this morning, it was very clear. I understand why I fell in love with that woman decades ago, why I fell for another one a few years later, why I fell for two more over the last decade. It all makes sense.<\/p>\n

I’m finally comfortable with what I’m looking for. I know it when I see it (and I’m instantly repelled when I don’t see it). Now my issues are remembering that a woman’s present reality isn’t always going to immediately meet the potential I see — and that I can’t idealize a woman to the point that her present flaws disillusion me. (I’ve done that in the past, but that’s another story.)<\/p>\n

The biggest issue I face, of course, is finding that rare woman whose potential matches my ideals — who also happens to want to work toward being that person — and who’s also willing to choose me.<\/p>\n

If she’s not willing to choose me — with my own flaws and potential — none of the rest matters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I fall in love only when I find the perfect woman. That will sound strange at best and dysfunctional at worst, because we all know there’s no such thing as a perfect woman (or a perfect man). So what exactly do I mean? For weeks, I’ve been pondering the question of what makes me fall Keep Reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[247,263,270],"class_list":{"0":"post-25481","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"tag-love","8":"tag-psychology","9":"tag-relationships","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1x9iR-6CZ","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25481","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25481"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25481\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31273,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25481\/revisions\/31273"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25481"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25481"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25481"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}