Good On Paper

Sometimes you meet a person who is so right for you that you cannot believe your luck! Until you realize, that you don't actually want to be with this person. Crazy, right? Life is never simple.

My friend, let's call him Tim, met a girl at one of his house parties. She was the friend of a friend and was brought over to the party by chance. They hit it off and began dating. He gushed to me that she was the nicest girl ever and so far the relationship was fabulous. I was so happy for him that he found someone who was right for him, even if I was a little jealous that I was still unsuccessfully looking. Until the next time we talked...

Tim told me that while things were still good that he felt differently than before about her. She was perfect for him - he said that she was everything that he had been looking for in a woman but he felt like something was missing. It began to dawn on him that as much as she was his theoretical ideal and he cared about her deeply, he wasn't in love with her.

That revelation was shocking for him and hard to take - how could he not be in love with the perfect girl? What was the matter with him that he was feeling like this when he was getting everything he said he ever wanted from the relationship? He was all torn up.

He felt terrible but he knew he'd have to end it because it wasn't fair to her in the end if he wasn't in love with her. She took it hard - probably thinking that she had finally met the perfect guy. They stayed on friendly terms but he still felt wretched about the whole situation.

I told Tim that he need not feel bad - he was in a classic good on paper situation. We've all encountered this at some time or another: everything is right except what you feel in your heart. I went through a similar thing with a guy back in my college years...everything was so good but my heart kept nagging at me that 'this isn't it.' He's going to be a surgeon soon and I still can't believe that my damn heart betrayed me like that! Still when faced with the good on paper mate, it doesn't matter how much your logic trys to overpower it: the heart wants what the heart wants.

So, Tim walked away from the perfect girl and began to search again for the perfect woman for him - only this time not in theory, in reality.