Whenever I hear someone say “she’s totally settling for him” or vice versa, it truly rubs me the wrong way.
First, they are 90% of the time talking about their looks.
“Oh, he’s too hot for her.”
“She’s so pretty, she could do so much better.”
When I saw this topic on a list of things to discuss, it said as a subtopic to write about why relationships should be seen as a reacher/settler in regards to personality and not looks. While I agree that that is a less artificial way of talking about someone else’s relationship, why are we discussing, I repeat, someone else’s relationship.
We have no right to talk about a relationship that we are not in. We do not know the whole picture and it does not benefit us to talk about it. So what, if one of them is seen as more attractive than the other in society’s eyes? So what if one is a little nicer than the other? As long as one partner sees the other as the settler, that’s all that matters.
Here’s an example.
When I was in my very first relationship, it was during my junior year. He was a senior, and we went to the same small high school. There was bound to be talk, but he and I did not go out of our way to share our relationship with others. When word got out, the whole settler/reacher topic came up in an instant. He was known as literally the coolest and most unique person in the school, while I did not have such title.
Everyone knew of him as the interesting and talkative guy who is always fun to be around. However, there were some people who were not a fan of him. So of course, there were those who thought that I was the reacher and those who thought that I was the settler.
However, there was a whole fan club devoted to him. They clearly thought that he was settling for me, no doubt. Even though they knew nothing about the relationship, or even about me, it got to me, and I was too embarrassed to talk to him about it. But every time someone asked if we were together and I responded with a yes, I felt as though they would judge it, judge something that they know only exists.
It got to a point where I had to tell him that I felt bad because even I thought he was settling for me. I felt self-insecure and conscious of everyone talking around me. He said something that reminded me of the purpose of relationships.
“That’s funny because I thought you were settling for me! Whenever I hear people talking about it they seem like you’re the settler. But why does that even matter? They don’t even know you or me.”
The purpose of a relationship is not so that people talk about you. It is for you and your other. You and the one you think you’re reaching.
Because in a relationship, everything about the other person just seems so perfect to you. You know everything about them that makes you think, “Wow you’re so great, how was I even able to have you in my life? What did I do right?”
So for those who talk about other people’s relationships in terms of settling and reaching, think about how you would feel if someone judged your relationship like that.
