Dear Dolly,
I seem to have no luck in love. My three daughters, son and close friends tell me that they are suffering from “girlfriend fatigue”. Apparently they are exhausted from meeting my latest flames. They claim there has been an endless stream of eminently suitable ladies, none of whom matches up to my exacting standards. Even in lockdown I’ve started seeing a fabulous lady who owns a trendy wine bar, but I remain confused.com when it comes to love. I’m now at a loss as to how to proceed and wonder if you would be so kind as to offer me a route map. I’m an attractive retired dentist (own hair and teeth), financially independent, very funny; I can sing but not dance.
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Warm regards, Jim
I don’t think anyone should come down too hard on you for this. There are far worse ways to conduct yourself in dating than being picky. It’s better to be too exacting in your standards when looking for a partner than completely unselective. High self-esteem (with humility) is an underrated quality: if you can’t believe you deserve happiness, who can? But then again, I’m not your daughter, and I don’t have to meet an “endless stream” of “eminently suitable ladies” while you tell me you’re “confused.com”, so I understand their frustrations. There is an internet phrase you may or may not be aware of: “a messy bitch who lives for the drama” — a person who creates unnecessarily complicated situations for themselves. There may be a whiff of this about you, Jim.
Perfectionism is fascinating, as it is so often a counterproductive, even self-destructive, route to what we desire. And there are lots of different motivations — it is a complex and convoluted activity. A reductive reading of your dilemma would be that you seek perfection because you yourself think you are perfect: that you have an inflated sense of your own qualities and therefore demand the same delusions of impossible excellence from a romantic partner. But I don’t think that’s what we’re dealing with here. (Although, in the future, I’d avoid describing yourself as “very funny” and let other people decide that for you. The more you insist on it, the less true it becomes to everyone who listens to you. Just a little something I’ve learnt on this journey we call life.)
I think it’s likely that you think of yourself as a romantic. And romantics are, ironically, the worst culprits for being relationship-avoidant. This is for two reasons: the first being that committing to someone would mean they would have to call off the search for love, and nothing is more exciting for a romantic than longing. The second is that they spend a lot of time thinking about who their partner might be, so it’s hard to find the 3D version that matches who they have invented in their mind. It’s less about perfection and more about prescriptivism — they write their own version of how they think love is going to pan out, then they find it perplexing that no one seems to know the specific plot and characters other than them.
In short: you might be putting off the actualisation of a relationship because the thought of it disappointing you is terrifying. I think that’s an understandable fear. It’s why perfectionism is often the reason cited for professional procrastination: better to put off the work and for it to be theoretically wonderful than deliver it and it be a letdown.
You’ve lived enough life by now to know that you can’t select an array of random specifics that suit your whims and expect to find a human that replicates them entirely. That is not a suitable hobby for anyone other than 14-year-old girls casting spells to conjure their dream boyfriend by burning lists of adjectives over a makeshift bonfire in the garden. You can’t summon someone who you’ve designed, because that doesn’t allow for the unpredictable flaws of the people we end up loving. Fun people still have tempers. Bookish people can be ignorant. Really sexy people, I’m sorry to tell you, often leave discarded teabags in the sink. But you have to get stuck in to the whole person if you’re ever going to experience any kind of real intimacy — you can’t pick and choose the best bits. Someone recently said to me: “When I spend time with my friends, I commit to the full experience of them.” I thought it was a lovely way of defining what acceptance means.
The other possibility is that you might not actually want a relationship. I’m sure you’ve thought about this, but people come up with all kinds of excuses for not finding a partner, because they think being without one isn’t an option. It is an option. You have a life that’s evidently already replete with love and company. You could fill your time with those people, in trendy wine bars or otherwise.
Think about the handful of attributes that you really value in a girlfriend above all else, then let go of all other expectations and allow yourself the fun of being surprised by someone. Be really honest with yourself about what’s important and what’s not — if you’re expecting someone to accept all of you, you will have to show them the same courtesy.
Because, while I am sure you do have wonderful hair and teeth and a very impressive singing voice, you too will have your downsides. It’s not pleasant to dwell on for too long, but there will be things about you that your friends and family have to endure when they commit to the full Jim experience. Things you might not even be aware of — things that make your friends sigh on the way home after a long dinner with you and say: “Bloody hell, Jim was being very Jim tonight, wasn’t he?” It’s called being human. It’s a gorgeous, shambolic humiliation and none of us gets it right. Come join us. You’ll like it.
To get your life dilemma answered by Dolly, email or send a voice note to deardolly@sundaytimes.co.uk or DM @theststyle
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