You Need Help: Is She “The One”?
Feature image via shutterstock.com.
In February 2015, Autostraddle launched The Ultimate Lesbian Sex Survey, open to all “lady-types who sleep with lady-types.” We garnered over 8,566 complete responses (89% of which were from people between the ages of 18 and 36) and now we’re sharing the results with you, bit by bit. In this series of posts, entitled “You Need Help (In Bed),” I’ll be answering questions left in the open-response box that asked, “What is the biggest question you have about sex or relationships?” Because we’re kicking off with a question that isn’t directly sex related, the title of this post remains “You Need Help.”
Q:
Is this “the one”?
Is she “the one”?
How do you know when you have found “the one”?
Are we right together?
Where is this going? What are we doing?
Can it last forever?
Can it last?
Is this love?
Will this last?
Is this it?
A:
In my opinion, the idea of “the one” is garbage. There is no one person for you; there are multiple people for everyone, sometimes simultaneously. You also can’t spin around in a crowded room, land on someone and freeze just like that forever. No one is perfect for anyone, though people (again, multiple people) can seem the most perfect for each other. Someone perfect for you right now might have been terrible for you five years ago, or be terrible for you five years from now. People change. You will change. Will you find someone who can change with you? Who can say?
The real answer is that there are two answers, and there are no answers. The first is easy. Think about this:
What do you want out of the whole of your life, when it comes down to it? What are your goals and dreams and hopes? (Write them down.) What do you want the biggest aspects of your life to look like? What do you want to work toward?
What do they want out of the whole of their life, when it comes down to it? What are their goals and dreams and hopes? What do they want the biggest aspects of their life to look like? What do they want to work toward?
Do these things align? Do you find it easy, or at least possible, to talk about the ways in which they align, and the ways in which they don’t? Do you want to talk about these things with this person, together? Do you want to listen to what they have to say?
What do you want out of the smallness of life, when it comes down to it? What do you want from your every day? What do you need in the morning, in the evening, in the quiet hours and in the loud ones, to feel happy or fulfilled or safe or at peace?
What do they want out of the smallness of life, when it comes down to it? What do they want from their every day? What do they need in the morning, in the evening, in the quiet hours and in the loud ones, to feel happy or fulfilled or safe or at peace?
Do these things align? Do you find it easy, or at least possible, to talk about the ways in which they align, and the ways in which they don’t? Do you want to talk about these things with this person, together? Do you want to listen to what they have to say?
Can you agree on what falls into each category?
The largeness and smallness of life might mean different things to both of you, and that can be revealing, too. Work, sex, family, money, health, relationship style, toothpaste dispensing style, turning off the lights when you leave a room, whether to try to have a cat, whether to try to have a kid, whether to try to have an orgy, whether to try to have a backyard someday, whether to try to move to your dream city or cities or countrysides or boats or Mars or where ever your heart is pulling you, and all the other places your heart might pull you, can all show you whether someone is right for you or not.
These things are easy, though. You can write them down and stare at them and know whether or not they line up and whether or not they’re true and whether or not you’re going to do something about it. The second part is harder, but you will also know the answer the second you read it even if you won’t let yourself know the answer:
Do you want to be with them?
Do you want to work every day to be together? Even when it sucks? Even when things are going really wrong or really well? Even when you have everything or nothing you ever dreamed of? Does taking this whole other person into your hands and putting yourself in theirs and trusting each other, over and over again, feel right? Do they just feel right?
The answer doesn’t have to be unequivocal. Some days it doesn’t have to be “yes” at all. But the only way to answer this question is to look within yourself and know it. (If you don’t know, that too is an answer.)