if you spend all your time looking for a partner that everybody else wants, you will run into lots of competition, and in the long run you won’t be happy when you win. You need to look for the person that you want— the person that is perfect for you but not necessarily that perfect for everyone else. To find that person you have to get to know her first. She should be someone whom you find bewitching, it’s more than just a friendship. But if you want the relationship to last, she has to be bewitching in a way that appeals uniquely to you, and be motivated primarily by who she is, not by what she looks like. And she has to feel the same way about you. That kind of bewitching doesn’t have that much to do with appearance, which means as you both get older you can remain as much in love as ever. I’m speaking here as a man who has been with the same woman for over 40 years.

There’s a tremendous risk in opening yourself up to a relationship like that however. When you know that this person is the only one you would ever want to spend your life with, then they have tremendous power over you. You can disagree about little things, but you also know that ultimately if they really want you to do something, then you will do it. And that can sometimes be very scary.