eyesore sipped: Finding A Balance Between ?Being Yourself? And ?Being In A

If ?being yourself? takes up so much of your time, focus, and energy that you don?t have enough time to reasonably consider or do enough things for any potential romantic?partner, then partnering may not be in the cards for you.

If you were to try to calculate how much time each day you have after you take all the time needed to do all the direct and indirect things it takes to ?be yourself,? then how many hours each day might you have to take care of the needs of a partner?

There are some single people who have time for another person.? There are some single people who don?t have enough hours in the average day to take care of their own needs.

I?ve lived in households run by single parents and I?ve lived in households run by couples.? In my limited experience, the single head of households tended to be as busy or busier than the couples.? I remember thinking, ?This person has no time to be in a relationship ? even if they wanted to be in a relationship.? Between their jobs, housework, hobbies, pastimes, special interest groups, and community activities, they have no time for another person in an intimate relationship.?

If you?re a single person, and you make your life so busy you don?t have daily time for another person, then understand it is much less likely you will couple up.? This is not rocket science.

If you?re a single person, and you think you?d prefer to be in a couple, then maybe one of the first things to do is to look at your priorities and how you spend your time, and clear up some regular space in your schedule.? For example, if you don?t have an hour or two each day to socialize or use other methods to filter through and maybe find a potential partner ? then you may not have enough time in your regular schedule for a partner.

And if creating an hour or two each day in your schedule is an unpleasant prospect (because you so love everything else you?re already doing), then maybe that might be?a happier path for you ? remaining single and focusing more on yourself.?

If you prefer working for your church, singing in the choir, and being a part of a Bible study 4 or 5 days a week, then maybe you practically won?t have enough time to care for the needs of another complex human being in a nurturing relationship.

If you prefer reading?a few books a week, rather than facing the regular conflicts and work that come from caring for another human being, then maybe coupling is not your preference.

If you prefer watching football all weekend, playing a role-playing game a couple of hours each night, or spending most weekends camping, then maybe, when combined with all your other activities, work, and responsibilities ? you won?t realistically have enough daily time to be mindful of another person?s wants and needs.

The alternatives are always very good things.? To repeat:? The alternative activities to being in a relationship are almost always really healthy, good, and?pleasant things:? playing games, watching TV, surfing Facebook, bowling league, a great career, or raising a house full of pets.? It?s not that any one of these things is a negative by itself?- it?s that in the aggregate, when all combined, if you do all of those activities regularly ? you may not have enough time to regularly take care of the emotional and social needs of another human being.

There?s nothing wrong with preferring to be single and preferring to spend your time ?being yourself.?? But if you want to be in a relationship, you may benefit from re-examining what ?being yourself? means in the context of making enough regular time to care for another person?s sexual, emotional, bonding, conversational, and many other related needs.

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I remember living in households run by single women and thinking:? The problem is not that she can?t find Mr. Right.? The larger problem is:? If she?found Mr. Right, she?d wouldn?t have?time for him.

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I?m told from time to time that different strokes work for different folks.? I?ve heard some people theorize that people should remain distinctly individual and separate while being part of a couple.? Leo Buscaglia, a 1980s ?love? guru who once had 5 books simultaneously on the New York Times Bestseller List (but if you read?his?Wikipedia stub, you might think his work is already largely forgotten),?used to talk about how?two people in a relationship?should be like two circles that overlapped?only partially (instead of overlapping completely or one circle being completely inside another).? With this mental construct, two people combined parts of their lives, while keeping most of their lives largely distinct, individual, and separate. ?I?ve?long thought geometric circle analogies, that tried to explain how couples should interact, sucked because of their static?oversimplification in only 2-dimensions.

It should be noted Leo Buscaglia never married and never had to personally show if his theories worked in practice.

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In a healthy couple,?each person?is considerate and adaptive to the wants and needs of the other.

I?ve never observed someone who put their own wants and needs above their partner?s?to?be good at relationships.? I?ve seen several people who thought they could put their interests above their partner?s, and who thought they were still good at being a significant other,?repeatedly fail to keep their relationships together.? Some of these people would even?have been considered ?unselfish? or??very giving? people.

But terms like ?selfish? and ?giving? don?t?reveal enough.? Sometimes it?s selfish to meet the needs and wants of your partner.? Sometimes self-preserving drives are very healthy.? Sometimes it?s better to be selfish, because an intelligent selfishness should make it clear that in order to meet more of?your own interests, you might be smarter to meet the interests of the people close to you.? Sometimes it?s better to be intelligently selfish than it is to be charitably self-harming.? Sometimes, the self-benefiting motivations lead us to create better benefits for?others and ourselves.

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When you become a partner to someone, you don?t just take on that person in a vacuum ? separate from the rest of their world.? Almost every person comes with a pre-existing social circle of friends and relatives.? When you take on a partner, then almost always, you take?on a great deal of interaction and interdependence with their social circle.

With some people who are less socially connected, this is less of a concern.? But for most socially pleasant and capable people, they come with a social circle.? So, often you?ll need to not only have enough time for your partner, you?ll often also need to make regular time to take care of their social community ? their parents, their children, and their social groups and activities.? It?s all connected.

An irony is:? If you want a really-capable?social partner, but you want them exclusively for yourself ? you?re looking for a combination that may not exist, because people who are really good socially almost always are very?connected to other socially-capable?people.? If you?re vision of ?couplehood? happiness involves taking up all of your partner?s time -?and not having to interact with their social circle ? that combination may rarely exist.? If your partner?has to exclude their social circle in order to satisfy your wants ? that almost always creates conflicts.

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