Settlers?

I've been thinking a lot (and talking w various friends) about what it means to "settle." And love. And settling down. It seems to be a theme, and people in my life seem to be obsessing over whether they should settle, or settle down.


I've settled down right now, but it's all about love and I definitely haven't settled. 


But there's this whole NYC single woman thing where you have to find the perfect guy - and when you start to get to a certain age, you panic, and thus, find yourself "settling." A lot of it, I suppose, is the panic of wanting children. But what do we want? Can we have the perfect partner - the person that compliments us, that works well with us - but also makes our knees weak when we kiss them? I think it's possible - but maybe not for everyone at every moment in time.


I understand there's reasons for settling - children, work, people who work well as partners but not romantically, not sure what else...but I still don't ever want to have to do it. There was a point in my life where I was in a relationship where I just wasn't happy - I wasn't over the top miserable, but it wasn't fulfilling me like I knew I could be fulfilled. I moved on. It was immensely hard, as staying would have been so easy, and so comfortable.


But I wanted more. I wanted happiness.


Iliana and I were talking about how we'd never want to just settle. Again, a NYC woman thing I think. We've done it before, and we definitely don't want to date any more assholes. But then this morning, Nelson and I were talking about women and men and dating, and he told me this long joke that was basically insinuating women were constantly looking for perfection, and nothing was good enough, and men will be satisfied and not look further. And while some of this is def based on gender stereotypes, I think part of it is our society imparting this idea to women that you have to be perfect: you have to be pretty, thin, rich, have a good guy, have a great job, a well-behaved kid, well-behaved adorable pet, nice clothes, be interesting, have good hobbies. I feel like I'm a hot mess half the time, with library books and letters from V falling out of my sequined bag onto the laps of strangers on subways, with a job I like (at an, ahem, nonprofit), talking too loudly, doing weird things like going to Burning Man and running 100 miles and calling it fun. So I fall outside of the norm, I guess. I don't settle for an ordinary 9to5 then watch some TV kind of life, so I wouldn't want to settle for any kind of relationship that's less than amazing.


But I've found it all right now, and I'm def not settling.