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A Modern Lover's Manifesto

Someone yesterday asked me what I wanted when it comes to all this love business.  I wrote the following.  It seemed like the kind of thing I'd want to hold on to.


I can tell you what I want, and then what would happen in some fantasy land version of the world.

I fret about things, about making people happy.  I want someone who I make happy by just being myself, someone I can be nice to.  Someone who will be nice to me.  Someone who I can look out for and they'll look out for me.  I want to be important to someone who I like enough that they're also important to me.  I want someone I can respect for their values, intelligence, ambition, and good sense.  I want someone to negotiate a life with.  I want someone who doesn't think their preferences are more important than mine and is therefore willing to explain their desires to me while also being willing to listen to what I want.  I want to have kids with someone.  I want them to be open to the idea of taking said children on amazing globe-hopping adventures.  It would make me very happy to have someone who would consider being a foster parent with me because I think people should live according to their values and I love children and there are lots of them who need love.  I want someone to talk about books and music with, someone who can teach me things but will take my recommendations seriously enough to check them out, even if they don't like them.  I want someone to grow with, someone to learn about, someone to learn about me.

It used to be easy to find people I wanted to spend time with because I just thought everyone was amazing and interesting.  I don't think that anymore, and sometimes that makes me sad, but I also think that I have a better idea about what I'm looking for, and that can't be a bad thing.  I used to look for someone who I thought had all these qualities that I admired that were so different from me, and then I realized that I want to be that person.  Someone who can fix things and make things and bake bread and go camping.  It would be nice to have someone to do some of those things with, but not all of them.  I'm not looking for another version of myself.  

Those are the things that matter to me.  In some sort of ideal world, I'd meet someone and just be swept away by them, by how amazing they are and they'd think I'm amazing and it would be so easy, but I'm a little tired of that rollercoaster if the truth be told.  You get swept away and then reality hits and it's never as good as you imagine it could be.  I want someone to love, not someone to fantasize about.  All of this is not to say that I don't want passion because I do.  I can't imagine being with someone who didn't make me tingle all over and feel nervous and challenge me and excite me.  Life would be so boring without that, but I think I'm past the point where that all by itself is enough.

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