I was asked the following by a friend who is in the process of making life and relationship decisions: \u201cHow did you know when you met the right one?\u201c My response follows.<\/p>\n
We first contacted on Match.com. Fran\u2019s user name \u201cSerendipity rules\u201d and \u201cRisk taking but not thrill seeking.\u201d\u00a0 My user name \u201cFind happiness\u201d and \u201cChance favors the prepared mind.\u201d\u00a0 I was not using \u201cQuaker pacifist revolutionary socialist\u201d — too much for folks. I said re<\/em> my age interests \u201cAny age, as long as you can keep up with me.\u201d We were both in our 50\u2019s then; I\u2019m currently 68 and Fran is 63. After Fran first contacted me online, we had two days of increasingly intense phone calls before our first meeting for a hike in the woods on the proverbial \u201cdark and stormy night.” We were already psyched.<\/p>\n After our first meeting\/hike, I knew we were on the way for a significant relationship. Fran had no idea. I immediately stopped other dating and emailed friends that I was \u201coff the street and on the\u00a0roller coaster.\u201d\u00a0 An issue, particularly after my first marriage, was mental health. That could only become apparent with time. There were some unusual things about Fran, and I approached them directly and aggressively. My best friend is a psychiatrist, and he is always appalled at my approach of asking intimate questions.\u00a0 People don\u2019t have to answer my questions, but it\u2019s amazing how often they do. And I respect, and return, that trust.<\/p>\n To find the right person, it helps to have experienced enough dating but not to \u00a0be burned out by excessive dating. We were both there \u2013 we were ready. I had previously met one dear lady where I knew we were well matched. She was in remission from cancer (sad, complex) but we each did a lot for one another. Having met her, I knew that the possibility of finding the right person was real. Drop all assumptions and preconceived notions of what that person might be like. Don\u2019t waste time with folks that are obviously not right, but don\u2019t have a fixed picture that you are trying to match with.<\/p>\n Our first meeting was so impressive that a few weeks later I listed what I had learned by the close of that evening. The list still stands. BHCGPI\u00a0 IOU<\/strong>.<\/p>\n B<\/strong>right.\u00a0 Something like that becomes clear quickly, and is important for me (and us).<\/p>\n H<\/strong>appy. This is so important. There are some unusual things about Fran, but she always recovers wonderfully and is basically a happy person. That is SO important \u2013 I don\u2019t think it can be overstated. Again, that is something that, if you are at all alert (and not blinded by things like sex), should be readily apparent.<\/p>\n C<\/strong>ourageous. We were hiking in the dark. I dared her (sounds like Tom Sawyer and Becky Thatcher) to cross the creek on a large and slippery fallen tree. She left her cell phone on one side (willing to risk her body but not her tech support) and we helped one another across without falling into the creek (totally soaked already anyhow).<\/p>\n G<\/strong>reat mental health. At least, it appeared this way, and I inquired intensively re her strange family situation, lack of stability, no female confidant (never knew a women without a valued confidant), marriages, etc. This history was not inherently bad. The question was, did these things have reasonable explanations, and how had she handled it all.\u00a0 I really dig in.<\/p>\n P<\/strong>hysical. She had energy and enthusiasm. I am a hand holder \u2013 I always ask, and you can tell so much that way. We still hold hands. This is a likely precursor for a sexual match, but that comes later. Some can learn to be less inhibited, but they cannot learn desire.<\/p>\n I<\/strong>nteresting. Yes, obviously. So many stories. And I have my own stories, of course.<\/p>\n I believe that we have these six things in common, which is important. Also very important, we have shared values (Fran is good) and expectations re money (we live modestly but appreciate value\/quality). Our vacations are mostly camping and hiking or with my family \u2013 inexpensive. We tend to talk things to death. We have big debates over the meaning of a word. Some might think this was arguing. We have disagreements at times. I have faith in our love, and we always recover well. I don\u2019t think we\u2019ve ever yelled at one another. We\u2019ve been fortunate re health.<\/p>\n Okay, the IOU<\/strong>s \u2013 they are what you make of them.<\/p>\n I<\/strong>ntense. And how, at times. But, like I mentioned, she recovers well.<\/p>\n O<\/strong>n focus (Obsessive, but not clinically). When she is on something, she is really on. The flip side is, she disregards everything else. She doesn\u2019t do maintenance (told me that straight up). She\u2019s on bees now \u2013 bees will likely still be around in the future, but in a couple of years the focus will be on something else. She doesn\u2019t burn bridges behind her, but she doesn\u2019t look back and so the bridges simply decay and fall with time.<\/p>\n U<\/strong>ntidy. Her old SUV was full of camping gear from taking her two boys camping weeks earlier. I was impressed by the gear and camping more than by the mess (although taking note).<\/p>\n So quite quickly I saw that Fran could be right for me and that I was right for her. In some ways, she really needed me (even though she had no idea of that at the time). This must sound very egotistical.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I was asked the following by a friend who is in the process of making life and relationship decisions: \u201cHow did you know when you met the right one?\u201c My response follows.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-560","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-family","category-love"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.peacefulways.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/560","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.peacefulways.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.peacefulways.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.peacefulways.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.peacefulways.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=560"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blog.peacefulways.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/560\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":574,"href":"https:\/\/blog.peacefulways.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/560\/revisions\/574"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.peacefulways.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=560"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.peacefulways.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=560"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.peacefulways.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=560"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}