How Close Can You Get to Perfect? – Dear Male Q | Guides

I know this site is traditionally about me giving advice and answers to some confusing questions, but the fact is, there is still so much that I don’t know and I am still learning new things every day. This week I want to talk about dating, and the search for a long-term relationship.

I have had quite a bit of dating experience and more importantly, a few serious relationships in the 10 years since I came out of the closet and as much as I would like to think so, I still get lost and have questions that I don’t know the answers to. I have been pondering a lot recently and there is one idea, in particular, has got my mind racing.

Why you Keep Getting Dumped Making a Relationship Last

So I thought – why not start a new segment of the site about big, pressing questions that don’t necessarily have one clear answer and instead reach out to you, the readers, to help give your own thoughts, experiences, and advice to help out others who might be in a similar situation?

Let me give you some more insight into what has gotten me into such a loop lately.

These past few weeks I have been going on a few dates, and with each one, I have only gotten more and more discouraged…

I know first hand that dating is tough, and finding the right guy can take a long time.

On one hand, the more and more I date, the more and more I know what I am looking for in the long-term, but as a consequence, I have only gotten progressively pickier, and thus finding “the right guy” has become so difficult to the point that has got me to wonder:

“How close can you get to perfect?”

I have been single for 9 months now, and I have been seriously boyfriend searching for 3 months now – yes, I know it is relatively short (for some people it takes years), but I have gotten myself into quite a slump.

Let me just put it out there that I know there is no such thing as “the perfect guy” and the prince charming or Hollywood dream boy is nothing but a fantasy.

I do realize that I have my own flaws and I am a firm believer that truly loving someone means being able to love the absolute worst in them, including their faults in imperfections.

But at the same time, after getting out of a pretty serious relationship, I learned so much about the core requirements I feel are necessary for me to enter a relationship that is poised to last long-term.

Should I compromise at all?

Maybe it is too early to feel so discouraged, but finding a guy who is on the same timeline in terms of their life path, in the same location as you, and ultimately snatching up someone who is looking for the same things both in the short-term and long-term feels daunting.

On top of this do they also need to be interesting, relatable, and attractive?

Well, that seems almost impossible.

I guess what I am getting at is how much do I need to compromise my ideals for someone I like? Or should I even compromise them at all?

I know there are people out there who are in long-term relationships or happily married with their “soulmates”, but the as time goes on, and the more I learn about human nature (more on that in another article), I am adversely more skeptical towards the idea of “the one true love”.

Maybe it is too much to ask for someone to be the world’s best friend, best sex, and best boyfriend.

Does such a guy even exist in one package?

As I have dated, loved, and grown, the more I have come to realize that putting this much expectation and responsibility on one person seems unrealistic and somewhat naive to a societal fantasy of “true love”.

It may be that I am recently overly pessimistic, or perhaps I am slowly waking up to the idea that true love takes more compromise than I realize (or am willing to give).

So what I am here to ask to you is…