WHAT I WANT IN THE ‘ONE’

Adeola Juwon
4 min readMay 19, 2021

The bane of human existence is the inability to acknowledge that our personality is in a constant flux. We are not stagnant, no, not in personality, knowledge, and even wants and needs. We are in a constant flux. And we suffer cognitive dissonance, get stuck in the rot of our old selves because of rigidity.

It is with this acknowledgement of my constant flux, the fluidity of my wants, that I find it hard to pinpoint what I want in a would-be partner.

Not that I don’t know what I want. I know some things that the person must bring to the table, and these should be generic for all humans: empathy, compassion, love and understanding. But apart from these, what else do I want? Intelligence? Hour glass shape? Wealth?

While all these are appealing and are important, they are not fundamental for me.

Take intelligence and brilliance, for example. They come in different shades. I am an introvert and bookish person. I love the company of books, stories and poetry. And I love pontificating philosophies and theories. My interest spreads from theology to behavioural science and recently to physics and neuroscience. Meanwhile, my ex is the opposite: an extrovert, bubbly with life and very artistic. She is brilliant in academics, but poetry and fictions bore her. She would rather dance or go to the beach to swim than stay home, read and debate theology.

The question is, do our personalities fit? No! Do I love and want her? Yes! Now, here comes the shocking thing, if I had been asked days before I met and fell in love with her, what I want in a woman, I’d have swiftly replied, someone who loves reading, poetry and debating. Yet, I fell in love with someone who is totally opposite of all these.

So, is it that I don’t really know what I want? Certainly not!

The intrinsic world of man is complex. The heart, like my mentor once told me, can travel distance within milliseconds. And as such, the wants of the heart are not static.

More so, as we grow in knowledge and get re-shaped by realities and experiences, our wants change. Now, if I’d been married to someone already, would I divorce because I am beginning to want something different? If what I want is her body shape or appearance, and I have married or committed to her because of this, would I break things off because the body or appearance changes?

For me, it is not a matter of what I want but who I want. So, who do I want?

I want someone who embraces her humanity with all its flaws and perfection, who acknowledges the incompleteness of her knowledge and gives room to change for a greater truth every time. I want someone with understanding, empathy and compassion– which is really what love is, anyway.

I think people fall out of love because they don’t give room for the constant flux that is our human reality. So, when their spouse or partner changes, they could not fall in love with the new person they are seeing. They are stuck with the old and familiar leaves of their own self and because of this they could not love and accept the newness of their spouse or partner.

What preserves love is the ability to morph and love anew, the ability to grow in love and fall in love with the new person our spouse and partner become. As their dreams and purpose change, as their taste and desire change, as their body and knowledge change, we fall in love with that newness and keep the flame of desire aglow.

Let me stir things up by saying that our partners or spouses do not always need to understand or share the same path or purpose with us. Support and backing-up is enough. A Pastor can marry a banker. Different path and purpose but it does not stop them from supporting each other in the journey of fulfilment. Neither does their purpose need to complement ours.

Maybe I have written what I want here, maybe not. But one thing I will love to leave with you is: we are in a state of constant flux. We are not, should not be static beings. And this fluidity of our wants should not make us back up from commitment to our partners and spouses.

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