THE SIMPLE & ONLY GUIDE TO FINDING - "THE ONE"

When I listen to my single girlfriends questioning love, my heart aches back in time to when I was in their shoes. Those single frustrated days sitting across from so many of my gal pals over an oriental chicken salad, congratulating them on their engagement, looking at their big diamond ring and asking the eventual question, “how did you know?” I always, always got the same answer and it would increasingly piss me off. “I just knew.” Fuck. WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN!?!?!? My 20s and early 30s dating life consisted of me endlessly watching romantic movies and searching hopelessly for the guy who closely resembled Bill Pullman from “While You Were Sleeping”. Funny, masculine, handsome in a non-threatening way. I found that I was either dreadfully disappointed in the men I was dating and they were equally disappointed in me. It was no use and it took me a long time to figure out what I was doing wrong.

Here’s what was wrong with me, and there’s a 99.9% chance that the same thing is wrong with you. You’re not too fat, too short, too tall, your hair is fine, you make enough money, etc., etc. You’re just not ready. There’s no “one person’ out there and you missed him and your life is over, etc., etc. There’s a TON of “the one” out there especially for you. It’s like confetti dropped from a helicopter. Chances are you did miss a few. They were simply ready and you were not. That is okay, once you are ready, they show up. You’ll recognize it immediately. You'll “know”. Seriously it is that simple.

So get ready. Here’s how. Be honest with yourself about what your bullshit is. You DO have bullshit baggage and don’t deny it. We all have it. Figure out what baggage you got. At least recognize it. Dig deep. Figure it out. Whatever you can solve.....solve. Figure out where and how and why, fix it if you can. Everyone has baggage. You are never not going to have baggage. The key is to get yours to the size of a carry on. Once you can fit your personal baggage into the “overhead compartment of life” you are ready. If you don’t do this crucial step the true you never emerges. You’re hiding. You will piss away your life hiding and people who are ready will sense it immediately and walk in the opposite direction. Do the hard work and you will be rewarded.

Once you are ready they seemingly materialize from thin air. Its like Brigadoon. They are the ones who did their own work and got their own baggage figured out because they wanted you. They wanted to be ready. They were excited to build a life with you and as such they got their shit together so they could.

I got married at age 36. It took me a long time to figure all this out. Longer than most. My head was stuck in the mud and I didn’t want to believe I wasn’t ready. I wanted to be saved. I wanted a knight in shining armor to sweep me up and tell me everything was going to be alright without me getting my hands dirty and digging into my baggage and cleaning it up. Doesn’t work that way. You gotta fix it yourself. I think of some of the previous boyfriends I wasted so much of my time and energy on that now wouldn't get past a first date. I was screwed up. I wasn’t ready. You gotta be okay with yourself and every flaw and skeleton and love and live your life the way the universe wants you to.

Being married doesn’t solve anything either. Baggage in overhead compartments may shift in flight. There are still struggles and victories and defeats and they change regularly. In a way, it’s worse now as you are dragging someone else into the daily mess. Then again, it's better cause there's someone that has promised to go through the mess with you. And you love them for it. You love them for a lot of reasons really. So it’s not a big deal, not too big a mess. I suppose this is where you “just know.”