DATING & RELATIONSHIPS
We Need To Stop Looking Down On Settling
R
emember that famous scene in the film Dirty Dancing, where heart-throb Johnny rescues Baby, his young leading lady, from the thralls of her conversative family? “Nobody puts Baby in the corner,” he declares, marching her up to the stage for an impromptu dance performance. He’d risked it all for their affair: his job! His reputation! But that’s what you do when you’re in love, right? I mean truly, headover-heels falling for someone? Dirty Dancing is a film, but it speaks well to the expectations our Monica Karpinski is a writer and editor focused on women’s health, sex, and relationships. She is the founder of women’s health media platform The Femedic 62 • FEBRUARY 2023
culture places on love and romance. We’re told that “The One” is out there waiting for us: a partner who fulfils all our emotional needs. And when we find them, it feels like magic and fireworks, all the time. Accepting anything less than this would be settling. You didn’t get what you hoped for, and have compromised your romantic aspirations for the security of companionship in life. Because it means we aren’t striving for the “best” outcome, we tend to see settling as something icky and distasteful. But in a world always pushing us to go for more, what if having enough is, well, enough? Fairy tales are nice, but they aren’t real. And when we expect other people to make us feel like we’re in one, we hold them to impossible standards—anything less than being swept off our feet can only feel like a total letdown. But if we dial our expectations back down to earth, we can instead approach new people and experiences with an open mind. This isn’t to say that we should indulge