Seriously Flawed: Can I Still Find Love?

Once again, you’re clicking through your My Matches pages, hoping against hope that maybe somehow at least one of your favorite matches really did send a communication, even though you didn’t get any new Communication Notices (there’s a delay on those things, right?). You check your My Homepage – yep, some of those matches have updated their accounts, some of them have viewed you recently, and yet they have failed to contact you. You ask yourself, “What is wrong? Why isn’t this working?”

When you experience this kind of recurrent frustration, it’s natural and healthy to do some work to try and figure out where the problem lies; if you can find the problem, you’re one step closer to finding the solution. Sometimes you can blame something outside of yourself (of course it wouldn’t be eHarmony!). Maybe, however, you’ve come to the conclusion that external problems can’t bear the entire blame for your matches’ resistance to contact you.

With apprehension, you finally allow yourself to ask, “What is wrong…with me?” You remember that one dreaded and very apparent flaw of yours -- something you’re deeply insecure about, but try to avoid thinking about. “Maybe it’s not a big deal,” you’ve been telling yourself, unwilling to really acknowledge that it exists, or that it’s that noticeable. Then finally you tell yourself, “This is why no one will communicate with me. When matches close for ‘the distance is too great’, they really mean ‘I don’t want to be with you because of_______’”. Your “flaw” could be a physical trait, your health, your job, your marital status, your children, etc. 

Your deepest insecurities surface and you can’t push them back down. You suspect that all of your matches are blinded and horrified by your glaring flaw -- who would ever want to live with this? You find statistics. Yep, the statistics about your issue are not in your favor. You ask around the Advice discussion boards – yep, nobody likes someone who has whatever issue you have. And they’re very out-spoken and direct about it! That confirms it for you…your issue is an instant, universal big-bad deal-breaker for all time.

What now? Buy a lot of cats? Is this flaw something you can change? You wonder. Some people may react by immediately and frantically changing whatever their issue may be.

If your issue isn’t something you can change (easily or at all) then you don’t have much control over it -- if any. Out of your control: this flaw belongs to you and you belong to it. It is intrinsically part of your identity, like it or not.

Like it or not? So, you set out to learn to like it. Even if you plan on working to root it out, it’s part of you, and it has been part of making you who you are; it’s shaped you and it has taught you wisdom that people without your issue will never understand.

In the meantime, know that everyone, everyone, everyone has some significant “flaw”. Some people know how to be presentable upfront and get all kinds of communication, but the split second they reveal their supposed flaw, their prospects vanish. Some people get into relationships and their issue eventually becomes apparent, killing one relationship after another. BUT…many, many people find successful long term relationships and marriages who have significant “flaws” and yet they are flourishing in their relationships.

The sometimes-painful truth is that your particular flaw may be a deal-breaker for the majority of your matches, but there is one person out there who will get you and your issue, who will embrace you -- who knows -- even choose you because of your issue. There is someone who will say to you, “Thank goodness I found someone like you, I always thought that would be impossible.”

For people who are really honest with themselves and persevere in the searching and waiting process, that’s bound to be the nature of the soul mate relationship when they find it.

Two people choose each other because of the unique qualities they value in each other.
Don’t let those matches in your Closed tab define you as unable to find love, let them be the fuel that propels you forward in your search. Throw some of those closed matches in the fireplace and warm up to your issue. Learn what is lovable about your “flaw” and when you find your soul mate, your relationship will be that much more fulfilling.