Spring cleaning my standards

My brain, essentially.

Not too long ago, my friend and I embarked upon an exercise in which I listed my requirements in a mate and he calculated roughly how many men there were in the world who met my standards. It started off pretty reasonably: male, heterosexual, fluent in English. But as we got further into the exercise, I began to grow a bit concerned, as the number shrunk dangerously lower and lower with each requirement.

A few weeks later, I devoted an entire afternoon to cleaning my apartment. I did a deep clean of the bathroom, kitchen and living room, removed my sliding windows from their tracks, took them down, scrubbed them and returned them to their place. As I stood admiring the fact that I could actually see the sun shining into my apartment for once, it hit me: maybe my apartment wasn’t the only thing in need of a good spring cleaning.

The next night, I had a dream about a guy I’d met once, who I’d dismissed because I didn’t feel he had his life together enough. He was between college and grad school, and seemed great in all aspects but one: he wasn’t already settled into his career with his whole life figured out. It wasn’t a monumental dream or anything, and I don’t even really remember what it was about. But this guy made an appearance in it, and I woke up with my mind racing.

I made my commute to work in a daze. As soon as I got to my desk, I signed onto Gchat and IMed a friend. “I had an epiphany. I had a dream, and I need to relax my standards.”

I realized that such a declaration required some explanation, particularly first thing in the morning. As I told my friend, relaxing my standards doesn’t mean accepting any less than I deserve. It doesn’t mean lowering my standards in terms of kindness, intelligence, humor or ambition. My dealbreakers still stand. But what I couldn’t get over was this: Who am I to require that someone be “settled?”

I myself am far from settled. I’m almost 24, and sure, I have a job in my intended career field, I live on my own, I’m financially independent and can generally take good care of myself. I can tell you where I’ll be and what I’ll be doing tomorrow, next week, next month and in six months. But beyond that, I have absolutely no idea. I have a general career direction, but I change my master plan pretty much on a monthly basis. Six months ago, I was studying for the LSAT. Three months ago, I was going to get my master’s in Europe. Today, I was thinking how much I’d like to move to California, though that probably has more to do with my desire to be very thin and relaxed and wear a lot of white clothing and summer hats than it has to do with a master plan.

And did I mention I pay the government hundreds of dollars in student loan interest payments every month, simply for the privilege of owing them money? And up until I changed jobs and started making enough money to be able to breathe a little, I borrowed and repaid the same $50 from my sister on pretty much a weekly basis. I’m not settled. Who the hell am I to refuse a potential match because they aren’t either?

No, this doesn’t mean you can expect to read about a string of dates with people living off unemployment, and I don’t expect to have to write any more about paying for my own dates. It just means I’ve come to the refreshing realization that, at the end of the day, I really just want to be with someone who treats me well.

As my friend told me when I shared this epiphany with her… getting “settled” together is half the fun.