The Partner Shaped Hole

Look at dating advice today and one of the prevailing attitudes is that you should be a complete person in your own right, responsible for your own happiness and that a partner should be someone to complement your life, not complete it.

I get it, I really do, I just don’t know how to do it. I could survive on my own, but with the life goal of having a family and being the best partner and father I could be, it’s not something I can achieve on my own. That’s all I’ve ever wanted, I feel that’s my purpose. I’m certainly not cut out for anything else, I’m not going to cure the incurable disease, start the next globe spanning company or design the next better space rocket. But I could be a supportive partner, an equal partner taking on my share of the responsibilities and a loving and caring father to try and raise the next generation who might just go on to cure that disease, or not, that’s their path to take not mine.

So while I could survive, get up, go to work, come home, work out, eat, use what little time is left to relax before sleep, repeat ad nauseam. But that won’t make me happy, and neither would another person specifically. However the knowledge that my goal could be achievable, that someone could want to be with me and raise that family, who would appreciate the support to achieve their dreams and goals would. At present, when at 35 I have yet to have a first date ever, let alone any intimate situation where fatherhood was even a remote possibility does not make me happy. It leaves me feeling unwanted, unloved and fundamentally broken. No, I’m not owed anything, and it isn’t on someone else to be responsible for my happiness, and I’m not asking them to. It would just be a side effect of the situation that I would find myself happy, confident and content knowing it was possible for someone to look at me with love (and yes, lust at times) where the current evidence points to that being impossible.

That is where the partner shaped hole comes into play. I see quite often women complaining that the guys who approach them, or express their attraction to them are clearly just looking for someone to fill that partner shaped hole and that it could be anyone, so they don’t feel special. I’m here to say they are right, but misguided in their conclusion. If you are a guy’s first crush, then it isn’t a hole, you are indeed special, you are their obsession and you are immensely special to that guy, however very few guys are lucky enough to have that person return their feelings. After repeated rejection, you learn not to get attached so much to the person before you know the situation will work out. That’s when the future planning stops having a defined person in them and the partner shaped hole takes it’s place. The confusion happens when women presume this means they aren’t special to the guy. Nothing could be further from the truth…eventually. If you show you are interested, return their energy and show that you aren’t just going to reject them like everyone before, that hole starts to take shape, your shape, it gains your features and before long those future plans and that first love obsession become focussed on you, because you showed the guy you saw the value in them and wanted them to be part of your life.

Guys want their happily ever after just as much as women do. But with the burden of initiation, approach and facing that rejection still firmly on the shoulders of men, they learn to take precautions against getting too attached too soon from that rejection. So if you like the guy who approaches you but think that he has an ‘anyone will do’ approach, know it’s because he’s been rejected before and it hurts (studies show the same part of the brain associated with physical pain lights up when experiencing rejection) so if you want him to think that only you will do, show him a reason to see no-one but you, show him you see his value and want to add it to your life. If you don’t like them, well it will still hurt, but a lot less than if they already thought you were going to be someone special who might actually care about them.