Well, the title is kind of mis-leading, I just couldn't think of a one-liner for the thoughts in this post. This is more a trail of thoughts in regaurd to "leagues" when it comes to relationships - ie, "That person is out of my league."
What exactly does that mean? Is that person inherently better than you? Smarter? More attractive? More successfull? More to the point, why does it matter? If you are interested in someone, why not just take the chance that they may be interested in you? Is it that we automatically classify potential mates based on a pre-concieved set of criteria, automatically discounting anyone that doesn't match a certain set of superficial qualities?
How do we know that the woman you just snubbed because she wasn't attractive enough to deserve your attention isn't the person that you could love so deeply you couldn't imagine life without her? How about that man that has a job that is beneith your level, how do you know he isn't the kindest, gentlest, most perfect match for you?
When we do find someone that is in our league, are we just settling for something less than we want? Is that beautiful, rich couple really happy that they found each other, or are they together because they look good together and "fit" financially? Are they really happy. How about the overweight average income couple. Do they both feel like they settled for their partner because they couldn't find someone better? Or are they more happy becuase they look past physical appearance and income status to the person underneath and found there someone they could truely love?
I ask this becuase when I look around, I very seldom see attractive/unattractive, rich/poor, or similar couples. People, for the most part, find relationships in their "league" and stay there. But, are they truely happy with who they have found or is there some seed of unhappiness deep down inside that says "I couldn't do any better, so I'll live with it."
Ah well, I don't suppose that one will ever be answered, at least not honestly...
2 comments:
I'm not really sure how to answer this. That is, I can't really tell what sort of answer you're after. But what the hell ... I'll give it a shot.
When I said something like "that woman is out of my league," I was referring to the ratio of what I believed she could offer me and what I believed I could offer her. It's that simple, at least for me.
It seems to me that one fundamental fact that seems to be missing from your analysis is the idea the relationships evolve. Initially, it is true that we have little to base our "sizing up" on other than looks, wealth, or immediate actions. But imagine just how daunting such things can be.
A stunningly beautiful, wealthy, single woman has a lot to offer on the face of things. It is only reasonable that she should expect at least the impression that all she offers will be compensated. And, if she sees me, I sincerely doubt she'll get that impression straight away.
Of course, if she's willing to invest some time and accept the risky proposition that what she offers during that time may come to nothing in the end, she may indeed find that I was worth it ... that what I offer really would compensate her ... or she may not. But either way, she's investing time and at least some resources.
And then there's the opportunity cost. The time and resources spent attempting to see if I'm worthy could be going toward someone with much better a priori chances.
Bottom line, if you want to know why most of us are not interested in dating "below our level," so to speak, it's because it's often a waste of time. Sure, true love is a wonderful thing, but it takes time and energy and a whole lot of work. I personally believe that there are rather few people with whom at least I could not be reasonably happy as far as relationships go, but that there are a lot of people that could not be happy with me.
I like to say I got lucky because only half the people out there get to marry up, but it's true in my case at least. Lea and I do not feel about each other anywhere near the way we did 15 years ago. And believe me, to hear her tell it now, it was touch and go there for a while.
Men want to be aroused and women to be protected. Thus wealthy men often seek disproportionally attractive women, and those women often wish to be sought by such men. But for the rest of us schmucks, "settling" is something we only talk about in retrospect after a relationship has failed. Something like sour grapes rears its head there.
For most of us, however, all the really matters is finding someone that seems to offer what we want and to whom we seem to offer what they want. That gets us together. What keeps us together is the understanding that, throughout our life together, we're both going to find out a lot more about each other than we ever could have known before we "got together" ... and some of it we won't like.
Very nicely put! Interesting that you put your analysis in economic perspective, and very interesting that it fits so well.
I absolutely agree that if you can get past that initial sizing up period, then the real thing can happen. It just seems to me that so many people base things solely on looks. For example a woman at work last night was talking about one of her friends who is seeing an apparently very unattractive man. Who is an engineer at Rockwell, very nice and sweet, and treats her like an angel, but because she is very attractive, she summed her commentary up with "I can't believe she would settle for someone like him. She can do so much better."
It is admittedly strictly anecdotal, but it still causes one to wonder why people insist on wanting others to give up all the great qualities they have discovered in someone just based on looks.
Thanks for your thoughts!
Post a Comment