Dating : Ordinary Love Has to Start by Being Extraordinary

A boring start will rarely get you anywhere.

Reading an article from Kris Gage on boring love and ordinary love, I found myself nodding and I realised I couldn’t agree more. It is indeed in the beauty of the familiarity, the ordinary pleasures and the safety that we need to look for in a relationship. Not the thrill of the ride, the exceptional highs and then the inevitable lows. It’s the balance that we need. This is exactly what we should be looking for to avoid heartbreak after heartbreak, to save ourselves from childish infatuation and to stop mindlessly throwing ourselves into something that looks better than it actually is.

But then… so that there could be even a start, it has to be extraordinary in some way. We don’t go for boring by default, we don’t settle for something that doesn’t excite us at all, we don’t jump into something where there is no spark at all.

I spent the majority of my adult life (11 years) in a relationship that was beautifully ordinary because of its familiarity, safety. It was boring and ordinary in the best ways possible, we knew each other, we loved each other, we didn’t manipulate each other. It was calm, it was safe, it was drama-free. And even if it ended — not because of the boredom — I still miss a lot from it. Waking up next to someone, knowing what the other means without explaining it in full sentences, understanding glances, shrugs and frowns without needing a word. Having common goals, working for them together, having that kind of intimacy where you can really be yourself and you are still loved and understood fully. I miss it, and I want it again.

But to fall in love, and to even consider a relationship, there has to be something extraordinary.

There has to be something exciting, something that has the possibility to ignite a spark. Maybe it is not going to turn into mindblowing and earth-shattering fireworks, but it has to start with something.

When scientists studied people with OCD they realised that even the normal brain functions in a way that it notices deviations from the norm. Our brains recognise patterns and familiarity easily, and it fires up when something is off — OCD is an enhanced state of this normal function when the mind cannot deal with the deviations when it gets disturbed by the broken patterns and unfamiliar setups.

To fall in love, to find someone worthwhile our attention, to even notice someone, they have to be somewhat extraordinary. They need to be different from the familiar patterns, they need to make us feel different, they need to be able to ignite a spark.

And then, only then, when our brain is snapped out of the familiar boredom can we notice something worthwhile in front of us. It can be anything, on any level, but there has to be something.

In the beginning, you don’t settle for boring.

Looking for stability, familiarity is not contradictory to looking for something extraordinary, something thrilling, something exciting. In the beginning, you don’t settle for boring. You don’t settle for a boring conversation, complete lack of humour or sex without chemistry — in the hope of them getting better with time. It could get better with time, but we are way past the age of arranged marriages where the concept of uniting families, keeping bloodlines healthy and estates growing were the main factors instead of romantic love.

In this day and age relationships are revolving around romantic love, and we are looking for someone who is going to blow our minds. Having said that, it’s only wise to look for someone who can do it constantly and not only for two days or two weeks.

In the age of endless possibilities, instant gratification and validation available at the swipe of our thumbs it is easy to get lost in the thrill of novelty and the promise of something even better than the one before.

But then there could be someone coming along, who both thrills you and calms you. And someone who is offering just as much stability as they are promising something extraordinary. And then the roller coaster ride can start. It’s life, there will be highs and lows, for sure. The only question is if the amplitude of the ups and downs was flattened out would it give a zero-sum result or would it be more in the positive. And also, a roller coaster ride can be quite good, if you are both in there, choosing to be there for each other, experiencing it all together.

With fresh relationships, the biggest mistake you can ever make is to expect the highs to stay high.

It is inevitable that the first period of infatuation or new love will turn into something more tolerable, more sustainable, more ordinary. If the highs and lows are staying, that’s a huge red flag — a sign of either two immature personalities, or an abusive relationship. Anyhow, it is doomed. What is not sustainable, cannot be conserved for the long run.

Until you find the one who thrills you and calms you to equal measure, it has to be somewhat extraordinary.

But when it’s all settled, you need to find beauty and thrill in the ordinary. The boring, the tedious, the difficult. When it’s already there and you are constantly choosing each other day after day, then it is the boring you should be after, it’s the ordinary that is worth keeping, for this is what can give you the backbone of a solid and reliable relationship. When it becomes a gradual building of something together, instead of the admiration of each other. When love becomes more than lust; when infatuation is replaced by mutual respect; when the long glances into each other’s eyes are giving way to looking together into a future.

I will settle for boring, just bring me someone first who will make me believe that even boring can be extraordinary. A man who can do both?