Tell me, Jude...

One of my favourite quotes from one of the most powerful and haunting books reads as follows

“Relationships never provide you with everything.

They provide you with some things.

You take all the things you want from a person – sexual chemistry, let’s say, or good conversation, or financial support, or intellectual compatibility, or niceness, or loyalty – and you get to pick three of these things.

Three – that’s it. Maybe four if you’re very lucky. The rest you have to look for elsewhere.

It’s only in the movies that you find someone who gives you all of those things. But this isn’t the movies.

In the real world, you have to identify which three qualities you want to spend the rest of your life with, and the you look for those qualities in another person.

If you keep trying to find everything, you’ll wind up with nothing.”

I agree with this quote. I think we need to know what’s truly important for us – what values, what characteristics, what features – and deliberately look for them in potential partners. But finding out what these features are is easier said than done.

A friend recently told me that what he was looking for in a partner, was a shared past. So, I said, it basically has to be someone you’ve known for a long time? Yes, he said – that was important to him, to be with someone who knew the stages of his life and who had seen him grow into who he is today. I didn’t think his odds were great, but he found someone and they are about to be married. He says his heart is full and he wants no more from life, just time to deepen the relationships and passions he has.

For me, I always knew that I wanted to be with a guy who is smart and who makes me laugh. One of the things I loved most in a former boyfriend was that within minutes of waking up, we'd made each other laugh. Oh, how lovely is it to wake up with a smile on your face.

For a long time, I thought that smart and funny were the only features I was looking for in a man.

But then I met someone who was incredibly kind. Who really wanted to make me happy – and who wanted me to be happy as much as he himself wanted to be happy. It was strange to discover kindness so late in my dating life, but it left a profound impression on me. Kindness, I thought, should be one of the features on my list. I wasn’t sure if there was a ranking among them or which one I’d be willing to compromise on if I had to. But I knew that it would be nice to be with a man who was not only smart and funny, but also kind.

Recently I met a smart, funny and kind man, who likes me a lot and wants to be with me. We’ve spent a lot of time together and it was easy and fun. We felt comfortable around each other, could talk for hours, didn’t drain each other… he bought me flowers, wanted to hear stories about my life, remember the people who were important to me, and cook meals that I would enjoyed.

He ticked all the boxes, and yet I was hesitant.

I didn’t want to admit it to myself at first, but I was missing a feature. I had never thought that it might be important to me, but now I was starting to realise there might be a fourth feature on my list. Too many, according to Willem in the book. Pick three, he said to Jude - four if you’re lucky, but with biological clocks ticking, is this really the right time to say no to a potentially good thing and wait for luck?

I was and am a bit hesitant – how much do I value the feature? Is it more important than one of the other ones? Can I afford to let this person slip away? And with his bets placed, how much am I willing to put in to find out?

Time will tell.