(The Obsession With Finding The One)
“It’s my friend’s situation, and honestly, I don’t know what to make of it anymore. She is 35, and her mother has become increasingly worried about her marriage. She keeps telling her mother that she hasn’t found the right man yet.
She has met men. It’s not as though nobody has approached her. But there is something she keeps going back to: a prophecy she received years ago about the man she would eventually marry. According to her, the men she’s met don’t fit the description. So she has decided to wait.
I understand wanting to marry well. I actually believe it is better to marry late and right than to marry early and divorce early. But sometimes I wonder whether she is still waiting for a real person or whether she has already become attached to an imaginary husband.
Maybe the man she is waiting for will eventually arrive exactly as she expects. But what if he doesn’t? Is it possible to become so committed to finding ‘the one’ that you miss the opportunity to recognise a good person standing in front of you? I genuinely don’t know. And because she is my friend, I’m afraid of judging something I may not fully understand.” – Anonymous
Reflection
There is something tender about wanting to believe that somewhere out there is a person who will fit everything we have imagined. Someone who will understand us effortlessly, love us consistently, share our values, look right, feel right, arrive at the right time and somehow confirm that all the waiting was worth it.
For some people, this hope is reinforced by family expectations, romantic movies, prophecies, or simply the fear of making the wrong choice. The desire itself is not foolish. Wanting a healthy marriage is deeply reasonable. The difficulty begins when the search for the right person quietly becomes a search for a person who matches an image.
We can become so attached to the idea of ‘the one’ that we start evaluating real people against an imaginary standard. A good person may be dismissed because the chemistry was not dramatic enough. A kind person may seem unsuitable because they do not possess every quality on our list.
Someone emotionally mature may be overlooked because they do not produce the intense feelings we have learned to associate with romance. Sometimes our standards are genuinely protecting us from unhealthy relationships. But sometimes they are protecting us from vulnerability itself. If nobody is ever quite right, we never have to face the frightening work of choosing someone real, knowing that real people come with differences, limitations, histories and imperfections.
Healthy love is not the absence of flaws. It is the presence of qualities that make imperfection workable; character, honesty, emotional safety, respect, responsibility, shared values, willingness to grow and the ability to repair after conflict. The question is not whether someone is perfect. It is whether the relationship is healthy enough for two imperfect people to build something meaningful.
There may also be a deeper fear beneath the obsession with finding the perfect partner: the fear of making an irreversible mistake. Marriage carries consequences, and nobody wants to discover after years that they chose badly. So we keep searching for certainty. We want a sign, but human relationships rarely offer that kind of certainty. At some point, discernment has to give way to decision. You can gather information, observe character and take your time, but you cannot eliminate every risk from loving another human being.
This does not mean the woman in the story should simply ignore what she believes about her future or allow her mother’s anxiety to dictate her life. Nor should anyone be pressured into marriage because they have reached a particular age. Thirty-five is not a deadline for someone’s worth, and being unmarried is not evidence that someone has failed. But there is value in honestly examining whether our beliefs are helping us discern reality or helping us avoid it. A conviction should make us wiser, not permanently unavailable to what is actually in front of us.
Perhaps one practical way to examine this is to separate non-negotiables from preferences and fantasies. When we confuse preferences with principles, we can reject healthy possibilities while waiting for a person who exists mostly in our imagination.
And perhaps the hardest question is this: Are you looking for someone who is right for you, or someone who makes you feel certain that you have finally found “the one”? Those are not always the same thing. The first requires discernment. The second can become an obsession with reassurance. The first leaves room for discovery. The second can make love feel like an examination that nobody can pass.
So, if you are waiting, wait wisely. Do not let desperation choose for you, but do not let perfectionism choose for you either. Know your values and pay attention to character. And when you meet someone imperfect but healthy, resist the temptation to reject them simply because they do not resemble the person you once imagined.
Sometimes the greatest obstacle to finding a good relationship is not that good people are unavailable; it is that we have become so attached to our picture of love that we no longer recognise it when it arrives in human form.
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