Why you should focus on the deal-makers and forget about deal-breakers to find your love!
Imet my wife 12 years ago at a party where I didn’t want to be. I was in a tough spot. I had broken it off with a girlfriend of five years half a year before and was not living the dream of the single.
I went out with my single friends to night clubs and private parties and dated rigorously. I took a quote someone told me, I believe it was from some NLP master to hart:
“The more people you date, the bigger the chance to find the right one”
There is a lot of truth to that and I met a lot of great people. Some became short-lived girlfriends, some became friends and others became a conversation over coffee and nothing more. It had its moments. But in truth, I did not want to be single. I wanted to find “the one” person to spend my life with.
It was easy to meet women at the time and what I see from my single friends it’s even easier today. With Tinder and the rest of the online dating services as well as offline, there are endless possibilities. But it looks like it may be even more difficult to find the important one with all the options available and all the expectations to find that perfect partner.
I am of course lucky. I found the perfect partner. I know this and I am told by others often enough. But was it luck? Or was it Tequila?
I think not. I think I had a say in it. I started acting different and it changed the game immediately. And Tequila helped start things off, can’t deny that.
It was a dark and stormy Saturday night! Well not really dark and stormy, but it was Saturday and I was not in the mood for a party.
I was a little depressed and had a hard time reconciling with the fact that I was still single. My best friend found the love of his life a year before and they were oh so happy together. I lost my main wingman and that did not make my outlook any better.
The good thing, though, was his new girlfriend’s adamant determination to find me a girlfriend too or at least to lure me to the party they were hosting. She tempted me with the promise of two very nice single girls attending as well. I would even have a chance to meet one of them before the party itself at the pre-party dinner. OK, that didn’t sound too bad. I couldn’t resist.
I went early and helped out with the cooking with my friend. We were doing our usual cooking and drinking and getting into a pretty great mood when she arrived. My future wife. It was kinda strange. She came directly from work with disheveled hair and clothes of the less party-sassy-hot-looking kind and more of a this-is-comfortable-slightly-dirty-work-clothes, but I was instantly smitten.
Something was different from other times. I was flirting like a crazy person and using all the tricks I had up my sleeve (Not that many) and we did have great chemistry, but she did not seem that interested. But I was. And in a different way than usual.
The more we talked, the more I got to know her during the evening, the more she started to look like the perfect girlfriend. And believe me, there were also signs of the opposite that I didn’t notice that much (I won’t say all, but I can say it had to do with tequila and strange comments about me being weird)
In retrospect, it was clear to me what I had done differently although it wasn’t planned and not at all a well-formed strategy. On the contrary, it has taken me years to frame those actions into the idea I want to share with you.
Three weeks before the party I made a wish. I am not religious so it wasn’t a wish directed at a God or something like that. I don’t even think I thought of it as a wish at the time, but what I did was to form a simple and coherent idea of what was most important to me in a girlfriend. What I wanted.
It was a shortlist of Deal-Makers. The five most important things I wanted in a girlfriend for life. Besides that, I had formalized a lesson I had from other earlier relationships — a lesson I still live by.
“You cannot change people in any significant way.”
You have to accept people as they are, enjoy the good parts and live with the rest. If you can’t accept people as they are, then you better find other people, because you can’t change them. I am not saying people can’t change, they certainly can. The point is — trying to mold someone to fit your ideals is a project of disaster.
Well back to the story. I was biking home from another friend (We do that a lot in Denmark, biking that is) and that has always been a time of reflection for me. I was contemplating what would be the essential thing for me to have in a girlfriend. I came up with the following list.
I want a girlfriend who is
- Light-hearted — has a baseline mood of happy
- Talkative — has a lot to say, so we can have intelligent conversations
- Petite — I like a girl that I can throw around without having to spend too many hours at the gym
- Funny — in a little bit silly way, like myself.
- A Redhead — I have no clue where that came from. It made no particular sense, but it was still part of the list.
I thought about it intently on my way home. And in the days that followed. I didn’t change the list. I thought that the list summarised all I wanted from all my experience in life (26 at the time, so still limited.)
When I met her at the party, I didn’t think — she fits the list perfectly. Not at first. She was a redhead though, not a true redhead (She had colored it) but a semi redhead under the color. And she was petite and beautiful. The first thing I noticed was her laugh. She laughed a lot from early on in the evening and was full of fun and a little bit on the silly side.
There was no doubt in my mind. I had to get her on a date. It took me the whole evening and a lot of Tequila. Which was not of my doing, I am not that fond of tequila. But she had quite a bit and I with a serious effort managed to convince her to go on a date with me the next day — even though she insisted on “Being in a good place right now and not looking for a boyfriend”.
Well she couldn’t resist my charms and we went to the movies the next day and as they say — the rest is history.
We have talked about it a lot since. The day we met and the way I had wished to find her. Surprisingly she had done something similar not many weeks before with a friend and likewise made a list of what was most important to her.
As I said, I am not religious. I don’t think some great power, God or destiny led us to find each other. I can’t rule it out completely, but I will go for a more mundane explanation.
You know the saying
“if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail”?
I think the truth lies with that saying. If you focus on the most important Deal-Makers, those are the things you will start to see in the world around you.
You have the power to let the world manifest around you by directing your attention. You can try it any day. Think about women wearing green dresses. If you focus on that, you will start seeing them all over the place and that is something to take advantage of.
I have known a lot of singles and still know a few that very often have a huge list of what they want and an even larger list of what they don’t want. That poses several problems:
- The chance of finding someone that fits that tiny window is slim to none
- When you focus on faults or Deal-Breakers then you will see them. They will be all over.
Borrowing from one of my favorite authors: Paulo Coelho and his book, the Alchemist:
“And, when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.”
When you pursue a purpose with determination, the universe will do its part to support you and to help you succeed.
But remember that pursuing something with a purpose needs to be done with some finesse and that is a topic for another article.
In summary
Focus on Deal-Makers
- Make it concrete and attainable
- Narrow it down to the absolute most important character traits
- Have a clear priority on character and not looks, but don’t forget looks
Forget about the small stuff — it doesn’t matter
- Letting go of the small things and focus on the big. In the end, there will always be lots and lots of small stuff since we are all complicated human beings with loads of faults. At least I am.
- The few and important character traits are the ones that will get you through the tough spots of your relationship.
Follow your heart and experiment until you have your list.
Good luck! I hope you will find your special someone.