Gossip magazines are great for drama and suspense. But for true amusement, nothing quite entertains me like the ongoing saga of my Desperate-to-Be-a-Housewife English friend, Sally. I’ve come across Sally several times throughout my travels to the UK, and she’s not a bad person. Friendly, generous, and looks-wise, not the worst I’ve ever seen. Getting a guy shouldn’t be that hard for her, and with her warm personality, she’s bound to find a nice guy with whom she can have a nice, long-term relationship. The big problem with her is: she’s REALLY desperate! And no amount amount of friendly advice-giving seems to make her realize that with high expectations, come low results.
To be honest, the word “desperate” doesn’t even cut it with Sally. She’s at that post-30 phase of her life when she needs a MAN, and needs a man NOW! Get this: As a pretty religious person for most of her life, she had tried to remain a virgin until marriage. And up to that point, she had succeeded. But getting sick of waiting (she was approaching 30), Sally actually made an ultimatum to GOD, if you can believe it: deliver me my husband by New Year’s Eve, or I swear I’ll give up my body! Now, New Year’s Eve being only about a MONTH AWAY at the time, this was a pretty unrealistic request.
Sure enough, the "deadline" came and went without a husband falling into her lap (imagine that!). Now Sally, once a model of purity and patience, is the most IMpatient, most reckless girl, most promiscuous girl around. She’ll sleep with guys after knowing them for all of 10 minutes, hoping they’ll be "the one". She’d be at dinner with one guy, and text another in the middle of the conversation! And worst of all, she just keeps hopping on the Merry-Go-Round of men, with no merry end in sight. She EXPECTS to actively find the man of her dreams; to sniff him out, to hunt him down. Instead of being patient and letting things come as they are, she actually thinks that finding a husband involves sleeping with guy after guy, until the right one magically shows up.
But life doesn’t work that way, does it? Especially for guys. We don’t quite RESPOND so well to female desperation, do we?
Nope, the best things in life don’t come when you’re looking. They come when you’re NOT looking, when your expectations are ZERO. As I’ve mentioned in previous blogs, my future wife didn’t come to me when she or I was looking; we met, quite by accident, on a train in Berlin. At the time, Jen, like Sally, wanted to get married relatively soon. She could have been like her friend and pushed the issue, gone out and go hubbie hunting. But she knew that if she forced it upon me, or anyone else for that matter, I sure as hell wouldn’t accede to it! So by being patient, and seeing what resulted in her life, she actually got what she wanted in the end. Patience pays.
But Sally doesn’t have patience, and so she doesn’t have positive results. We both try to help her out, to make her slow down and just enjoy life as it unfolds, but it never works. She breaks the rule that says that the less you push, the more you pull in. Sadly, all she’s been pulling in is misery.
So if you’re hoping for a great girlfriend, or a future wife, whose example do you want to follow? The patient, not-too-high expectations of my fiancee, or the gotta-have-it-now, unreasonable expectations example of Sally?
It’s your choice. But remember, good things come to those who wait.