He’s A Good Guy, But Is He The Right Guy?

“Dear Anna, thank you for all your content, and for making us feel so seen and validated and reminding us that we deserve better 🙂 I’ve a question that eats at me which i was hoping i could seek your advice on – which is that after dating a series of chads, I’m finally dating someone who is a non-chad – kind, decent, stable, consistent, shows up for me, and yet there is no spark and minimal emotional connection. People have told me that i should recognise a good thing in my life after all that drama and emotional unavailable men, I’m trying to hard to believe them and trying to build a connection over time, but part of me believes that i should be feeling something different. What should I do? Is it so silly to give up something so ‘good’ just because of a lack of ‘spark’? I really appreciate it <3”

My Dearest Bad Biddie,

When I was twenty-four, I was home for the holidays and driving around with my mom when I told her that I was convinced I possessed the ability to marry anyone – that I could convince myself to see the beauty of and adapt to any relationship with any man, so long as that man wanted me. At the time, I was dating a guy who was very much not a Chad, but also very much not a guy I was attracted to. To most people, it must seem ludicrous to date someone you’re not attracted to, but to the twenty-four year old me, it felt like I had to choose between feeling a spark or feeling stable and the latter felt safer. I’m not sure how many men are often persuaded to stay with women that they’re not attracted to, but I’d wager that the number is far less than the amount of women who are told that the security of a man who will never leave you is more important than finding a man who is your match. It took me many years after this conversation to realize that, in fact, being a social chameleon is not always a virtue, and that sometimes, adapting to another person’s way of life is just an excuse to avoid making your own decisions.

I once had a well-intentioned, but ill-informed friend who told me that the key to finding a husband was to date a former fat kid who was bullied as a child. This statement is obviously problematic on many levels, but the gist of the theory was that the only way to feel secure in a relationship is to find a man who is so insecure with himself from his childhood trauma that you become the reason he feels secure, and therefore, the reason he will never leave you. This should go without saying, but we all deserve to find someone who wants to be with us not because they have no other options, but because they don’t want other options.

Dating and the quest for love often reads like a fairy tale, but I prefer to think of the tale as reading less like a Cinderella and more like a Goldilocks and the Three Bears. We are, as women, so often taught to think that we need to wait for the prince to come pick us or save us when we have, in actuality, the power to pick which relationship is neither too hot or too cold. Your friends, while well-intentioned, often dispense subjective advice that may do more harm than good when applied to your life. Ultimately, in a world that is constantly telling women that we’re asking for too much when all we’re asking for is the bare minimum, I hope you realize that you deserve both spark and security, and that the right relationship won’t make you choose between the two.

Love,
Your internet hype woman