Why choose a partner? Why choose that particular individual as a partner?

Goes along with the theme of relationships in my head as of late. This is a question though that I’ve been focused on for a while, but I wanna say it was around late last year that I really started to put it in the back of my mind to percolate. I’ve written a post on here before about asking ourselves why we want a partner, after hearing whatever it was that inspired the thought. I don’t remember what it was. I think it was listening to someone on YouTube. I’m sure I mentioned it on the post – What do you want out of a relationship? A great question I heard recently. I’ma peruse it and confirm before I go on.

Yeah, no I didn’t link the video. I linked a post so I don’t remember what I watched. I remember it SORT of in my head, the guy’s face a wee lil bit, but can’t remember specifically or I’d search and link here. I was bad about that. I can’t believe it was in 2017 I wrote that. Feels like just last year. lol

A lot of what I will state here will have already been mentioned in that blog so you can read that one too.

I’ve been thinking a lot about why we choose certain people, or why we should. The biggest thing for me, I’ve already mentioned in that previous blog a few years ago. I want someone I can grow with. Who can help me grow. Who I can help become a better person and the reverse too. Someone I can grow a deep love with. Not just a partner who I’d immediately love and that passion would die, but that individual who I could grow that deep passionate love with. Something that, as I’ve always known and stated, one can only truly grow with a best friend. Where they can state to one another, whatever happens between us, we will get through it together because we are in this together. 

Now for the record, this is my own perception and belief. Perhaps to you it means that passion is ignited from the start and it only grows. From personal experience, from many stories, from reading and listening to others discuss those things, I personally don’t think that sort of passion can remain long term. I’m not one of those people who want a quick passionate affair. I never have. My heart goes too deep, the feelings too strong, and they grow. So typically if I have encountered someone who did that to me, I pulled back and waited. Most don’t want to grow with us. They’re like, “you’re so freakin awesome!!!” and then two months later *crickets.*

I think they just get into that mode of loving the “new” and the “pretty,” but don’t ever want to truly know a person. I had someone tell me he did. He wanted to know everything and anything and I thought wow, someone actually does. But . . . he didn’t want to grow with me. He wanted to interview me and then once the new wore off, and the deep dive began? *crickets*

Totally snorted when I said deep dive. Colin is a diver. As in, diver diver. lol Didn’t plan to correlate the two.

Moving on.

The thing with that though, is that if you are like me and you seek depth. You seek that intimacy that only true love and best friends have? The failure rate is going to be beyond high. That is a hard lesson I have learned through the years, and they were only friends mind you. I don’t go the relationship route. Until a person shows me as a friend that they’re gonna stick around, I never take it to that next level. Too old-fashioned that way.

But it is not going to be easy because not only do we attract many who think they want that depth, and that level of intimacy, but until they begin to reach that precipice? They won’t truly get it. They won’t know until they know that they can’t go there with you. It will hurt. It will be hard to see that and to let them go. It takes patience and courage to not just take your time to build that foundation for the growth, but also on our own personal part to open up to it.

Now I do plan to correlate this to Julian and Kat since she came to mind just now. Letting me know they relate. Kat and Julian could be the precise example of this topic too. They both craved a partner who they could grow with, but they didn’t just crave it – they needed it. But Kat didn’t realize that she struggled with letting people in. Julian has always known that for him? It’s all or nothing. Not just all as in, sure here’s a bit of me, but I mean ALL. I mean they say they own one another so there’s that. This is a man who has been around a long time. This is a man who has been a monster. Who has done bad things. Who has survived wars. Literal wars. He has had to take on other monsters, companies, humans, and do everything in his power to survive, and help his kind survive.

He is a leader. Leaders do not always find partners (romantic or otherwise) who truly understand that there comes a great responsibility with their position, and danger with being connected to them. Sometimes to the point that they need to sacrifice a lot to make the big decisions. Few can handle what that entails. It’s not easy. It’s not easy to be put into that sort of leadership role. Think of our current President. Think of the way those who love him, do. Those who hate him, do. Think of what he wakes up every day to deal with. Think of what he has to deal with. Think of what his family has to deal with (more so the ones who didn’t ask for the focus, and aren’t IN the focus daily) or his partner. (I’m not making this a personal thing, it could be a past President if you like.)

Julian is not an easy man to love because of it, but he also has a limit to what he can give unless his partner is one hundred percent in. And in to the death. In to the point that they can know absolutely everything about his life, who he is, and more. It is not a man who just anyone can handle the demons of. So when he finally says, come on in? He goes into the hard core dangerously deep, there are zero secrets with him if you want to be with him. You are his and his alone. You confirm things with him to the point that I imagine at times KAt feels she lives in a cage. But for her, because she is the one meant to be with him?

Her fears came from understanding of that. Seeking of that. Because for her, it is comforting. For her, it wasn’t about “ew he is totally controlling me,” as much as, “what if he goes that route and then leaves me?” Because imagine the style of connection there is between them. There are no walls. No secrets. No matter how much she may try to do that, eventually the information comes. She tries to lie to Julian, but ends up blurting it all to him. Because that was the partner for her. She was the partner for him. They became better around one another. The best versions of themselves came out. Once she let him in. For the first part of the series we see only her refusing to drop those walls and still hoping she could fight him.

Until Julian in the last book (The Final Chapter) finally grabs her, sticks her in his home with him, and says I know you want this, I know this is meant to be, you are not going anywhere until you see that. Well, he didn’t SAY it. It was his actions. Telling her again and again that he wasn’t going anywhere. Telling her they were going to be mates. Period. Those were his words. I don’t think if any part of him sensed she didn’t truly want it, he would’ve gone as hard core though. He knew she wanted that. She was just scared because she knew when she dropped those walls toward him? There’d be nobody but Julian until they died and she’d never had that. But Kat didn’t have an easy life so she needed that almost hard core love that Julian knew how to give her. That straight up – you are mine, I won’t allow anyone else to have you.

What he really gave her is what I think we all love. Stability. Security. Safety. Just a lil different in that world.

Let’s bring it back to humans and away from the level of intensity of those two vampires, lol.

I do so love their depth (and Julian) though, lol. I realized a GREAT Julian inspiration could be Justin Theroux. Hiya Justin, lol. Ahem. Where was I?

Why should we choose a partner? That’s been an almost clinical aspect I look at when I am around people. Not just for romantic aspects either. I shouldn’t say choose. I should say choose to get closer to. Because I’m not sure anyone can choose who they love. I know that we can sort of have feelings for someone and then they grow through knowing the person, being around them, that sort of thing. But outright not having any toward a person and then they grow? I have never personally experienced that. Usually the most mine grow to is an apathy. I just meh. lol I get to that place I can tolerate them, but they trickle out of my life and I don’t force them to stay.

I do look at the way a person is and whether they fit well with me though, and the reverse. We can’t change people. This is something I’ve probably mentioned forever. I look at a person and determine if they are a person I like. I don’t just think, “well, once they learn this or change that.” No. Take them in. Now. As they are. Do you like them? Do you not like certain aspects? Great. Now, can you live with them AS they are? That is how we should determine.

There are plenty of things that drive Jeanie batty about me I’m sure. Plenty that I don’t entirely agree with or otherwise with her. I still love and adore her exactly as she is. That is exactly why I do. We are not carbon copies. She can teach me things, I can teach her things. We work because of our differences and our similarities. Whether she ever becomes better, worse, or never changes. The person she is? I love so so freaking much. Because who she is at the core is who she will remain. Outside and inside changes. But the core of a person never does.

I will never entirely be able to rid myself of the lack of patience I sometimes have and frustration blows. I learn to better handle it so I’m not yelling at people and I’m more understanding of my own feelings, but I have had that trigger in me as long as I can remember. It’s how I HANDLE it that can change. I also absolutely HATE people who hurt children or animals. I grow tired of lazy folks. I will always choose to be kind and nice over hateful and mean. I default to saying okay and letting things go versus fighting and creating more stress in me or others around me.

I also choose to always try to have a large goal to constantly be working toward. So I like people around me who don’t just allow life to pass them by and never strive even to learn something new each day. Or sit around and complain about their weight when they could literally walk back and forth down the hall in their house for a workout, or something else short of them being a vegetable. So I could never have a partner who is content in putting others down and never striving to be better in any way. I could never tolerate someone on a long term basis who has no hopes of achieving anything.

My big goal is always to become a better storyteller, and even better cover designer because that also something I love doing. It’s a never achievable goal so that I will always have that. Those are those things that are important to me and in my world. Just like growing passion for my partner. I don’t mean I lust after him 24/7, lol. I mean that we are never content in going twenty years without something as simple as a hug. That our friendship and connection is always important for us to take care of and nurture. That we’re not like, “well I don’t know how to make it better so whatever.” No. That’s not passion whatsoever. That’s boredom and settling. I won’t have a partner just so I’m not alone. That’s not in me to choose. I will never just choose because, “well you’re there”

I’ve had that option. I’ve had MANY different options. Even had someone say they would leave their wife for me. Don’t get me started on that, you will see the temper. I will choose the partner I can grow with. The one who will be able to sit in the mud with me, and isn’t afraid to let me sit in it with him. The one who isn’t afraid to be vulnerable with me. The one I can grow a life with, grow a connection, nurture a connection. Love is beyond important. As is attraction. More so is who they are as a human being. Not what they can con me into believing. Because time and patience are all we ever need to see who a person is. Many won’t give time and patience. They’re in such a rush these days. I only ever wanna ask them . . . why? If you want to build a life with a person, today is that day. Start building it. Rushing into something isn’t the attributes of a person who wants to build. They’re the one who wanna get rich quick, and will fail over time to build anything. That house of cards will topple at the slightest bit of conflict.

I don’t mind conflict. I’ve been clawing my way out of it since I was born. Been overcoming hard times. Been working my way up. Every time I fall, I grab that ladder and begin again. Close friends have always generally been that too for me. Everyone who has ever helped me I still hold in the highest esteem. I am grateful even to the ones who hurt me. I wouldn’t BE here if they’d hadn’t taught me those lessons.

So that’s why I don’t search for perfection. For richest. For sexiest. But for normal. I love normal. I love the people around me who are okay with ME not being perfect and who can teach me that I am still beautiful when I have only had a few hours of sleep, don’t got makeup on, have had an anxiety attack in the middle of the night. When someone can say I’m beautiful in that moment? That’s the person I like. It’s the person I love. The one who knows human beings are sometimes not perfect and that’s okay. That below it all, that person is generous, and open, and loving. They know we don’t need to be fixed to be loved. They are a person one can grow with. It’s not about what a person looks like. It’s about what they do for our soul. Soul growth.

Random side note – I’m not saying someone who lives on the street can be a good partner, but at the same time depending on the person? Who says they can’t? Who says they wouldn’t wanna do better for the person they love? I mean they could be pretending to be that poor to see who truly wants them too so there’s that. lol Point being, there are exceptions as usual. Don’t wanna be all “only this!”

It’s something that when I think about it? All of my characters also have. At least the leads. Maybe the supporting too. They grow. The partners they end up with? Are people who have also overcome quite a lot and continue to strive to be a better person than they were. Maybe it’s why I gravitate toward characters like that in my work. I like to surround myself with people like that because then those same people I can learn from. What a boring live it would be to be content in never trying to be better than we were. Yes, for some that sort of life work. For me, not so much. For my characters? Not really either.

Growth isn’t always comfortable, but it’s a good thing.

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