Happy & Healthy

HOW DO YOU FIND THE ONE? FIRST ASK YOURSELF THIS IMPORTANT QUESTION

Finding the one is not easy. However, it is important, judging by how often this topic comes up in conversations with friends. Many of my favorites have found their favorite playmate or Keeshond by now, but there are a few notorious singles who just can't find a partner, even though they want one.

“What am I doing wrong?” laments a friend while stirring her coffee so vigorously that the milk foam swirls around. “I have a job, I have a house, I have friends: I don’t need a man at all!” she spits at no one in particular. (There are two of us. This is such a one-sided tirade that will last a while.) “And he really has to be an addition to my life, otherwise it’s not worth it for me,” she adds redundantly, as I hear the increasing aggression in her voice. And then she lists a set of qualities that a future partner should meet.

Of course, I know what she is doing wrong. She sees the splinter in someone else's eye, but not the beam in her own. Wrong pants? Get rid of them. No romantic texts? Get lost. No one meets the list. But I sometimes wonder if her meddling is such a fantastic bycatch. And whether her eternal work obligations will make it much more pleasant. And whether you really want to date someone who thinks you should be the addition, but who nevertheless doesn’t need you. Would I – no matter how much I like her, she is a friend – want to hang out with her? Well, no.

“Would you go on a date with yourself?”

The American medium and cosmic coach Dougall Fraser (remarkable phenomenon, thanks for this new hobby, May) knows which core question you should ask yourself before you start looking for a nice other half. He formulates it like this: “Would you go on a date with yourself?” He regularly notices in his practice that people hold others responsible for their happiness, that they are very focused on what someone else has to or should offer them. Instead, you should reflect on yourself and ask what you have to offer the other. In short: would you want to be your own dinner date? Would you want to get impossibly drunk with yourself? Are you fantastic company to have coffee and croissants with? And more?

So, dear angry whining friend and drinking ‘I won’t give myself anymore because I’ve been stepped on my heart’ unemployed hothead: would you want to date yourself? No, right? Come on, get to work. Not easy, I admit (I have an easy time talking, with my relationship; I can go through life cursing and aggressively, become overweight, whine about gifts and attention, and make his life miserable because I have already found the one and don’t need to date anymore), but be especially honest and critical towards and about yourself. It might help enormously. “Who does good, meets good” is an old poetry album verse. A truth of old women, yes, but still a truth.

Written by Kalinka Hählen