The ones who are not soul-mated the ones who have settled are even more dismissive of my singleness Its not that hard to find someone to marry they say. No relationship is perfect they say they who make do with dutiful sex and gassy bedtime rituals who settle for TV as conversation who believe that husbandly capitulation yes honey okay honey is the same as concord. Hes doing what you tell him to do because he doesnt care enough to argue I think. Your petty demands simply make him feel superior or resentful and someday he will fuck his pretty young coworker who asks nothing of him and you will actually be shocked. Give me a man with a little fight in him a man who calls me on my bullshit. But who also kind of likes my bullshit. And yet Dont land me in one of those relationships where were always pecking at each other disguising insults as jokes rolling our eyes and playfully scrapping in front of our friends hoping to lure them to our side of an argument they could not care less about. Those awful if only relationships This marriage would be great if only and you sense the if only list is a lot longer than either of them realizes.So I know I am right not to settle but it doesnt make me feel better as my friends pair off and I stay home on Friday night with a bottle of wine and make myself an extravagant meal and tell myself This is perfect as if Im the one dating me. As I go to endless rounds of parties and bar nights perfumed and sprayed and hopeful rotating myself around the room like some dubious dessert. I go on dates with men who are nice and good-looking and smart perfect-on-paper men who make me feel like Im in a foreign land trying to explain myself trying to make myself known. Because isnt that the point of every relationship to be known by someone else to be understood He gets me. She gets me. Isnt that the simple magic phraseSo you suffer through the night with the perfect-on-paper man the stutter of jokes misunderstood the witty remarks lobbed and missed. Or maybe he understands that youve made a witty remark but unsure of what to do with it he holds it in his hand like some bit of conversational phlegm he will wipe away later. You spend another hour trying to find each other to recognise each other and you drink a little too much and try a little too hard. And you go home to a cold bed and think That was fine. And your life is a long line of fine.