from Naomi:

The best way to find someone you want to be with forever is to become that person yourself. - Patricia H. Taylor

When I first read this, I realized it could be interpreted two ways. The first is the 'loner' interpretation - where you literally become the person you want to be with forever. And the second interpretation is where you become someone like someone you want to be with forever. In my opinion, both interpretations are flawed: one obviously much more than the other.

In the second interpretation, if we take it too literally we run the risk of becoming intolerant of another's differences. There is a fine line between what we can expect in another person without compromising their freedom. I, personally, believe that the big core values can be asked for and expected in a partner while the nuances can not. To me this is a little like house hunting: you can be inflexible when it comes to things such as how many bedrooms a house has and where it is located - but if you start expecting things such as wall color and furniture placement, you might have to look very long. And of course the risk is, that what is in your mind may not be what you really need.

Nik's response:

Makes complete sense.

The one thing I have realized though, from a lot of talking with my parents and others, that marriage or a long term relationship is all about compromise. I don't know if talking about marriage is stretching the subject but in the end it's not about a connection. I've always been obsessed with finding this connection with the other person. But in the end it's about MAKING a relationship WORK. Which is hard WORK. (Sorry for the all caps) Anyway, I think it's about firstly knowing yourself really well. You have to know who you are before you can truly know who you want to spend the rest of your life with.

Don't know if I took this to a 'whole nother level :)

my two cents:

I'm going to run with Nik's statement, that it takes determined effort to make a relationship work. I read the following passage when I was going through a slightly rocky time in my relationship with Val, and it reminded me that love doesn't actually look like it does in the movies:

Risky, yes, but each of us, based on experiences we'd recently had, believed firmly that love, deep abiding love, willing the best for another and putting yourself second, is not left to chance, but rather is a decision, a commitment we hold the power to make in our very own hands. Every day, in every area of our lives, each of us individually can decide to love-to love when hurt, when down, when struggling, when afraid, when powerful, when weak, when doubting, when sure. And God's love had taught us well that such a decision is always within our grasp. - Eleanor Sampeck in Seasons of Love: A Journey of Faith, Family, and Community

A relationship isn't always going to be new and exciting, and it's not just about feeling a connection. A lot of making a relationship work is deciding to love even when that's not what you want to do. I would go so far as to say that, without such a commitment, you will never give the other person the space to be comfortable being themselves, and you'll have sabotaged the relationship before it even really has a chance to begin. Further, you'll never be able to accurately assess how important a relationship is to you if you don't see what it can be when you give it your all. The alternative is to live with the uncertainty and, possibly, the regret of losing something that might have been great because you weren't willing to fight for it.