That was an incredibly ballsy thing to do to stand up and say, ‘This is what I need. Are you good enough to give it to me?’ Not ‘Am I good enough to deserve the kind of treatment that I want?’ ”

But maybe you don’t need to be explainable. Maybe the most interesting perspectives come from being willing to occupy a difficult-to-define place, even if it means sacrificing others’ understanding of you. The challenge then becomes committing to occupy that place far longer than most feel comfortable — long enough to cultivate a voice out of your curiosity that is confident enough in its own continuity to tell you exactly what’s worth committing to when the time comes.

1. Am I emotionally available for a relationship?
2. Am I aware of my triggers/how they show up in my relationships?
3. Do I really like this person?
4. Am I familiar or comfortable with this person? There’s a difference.
5. Do I have to perform or alter myself to be loved by them?
6. Do our core values and beliefs align?
7. Am I attracted to their heart, values and character?
8. Am I willing to honor our differences?
9. Am I willing to accept their flaws?
10. Do I like who I am with this person?
11. Do I want to be like this person?
12. Do they challenge me to grow?
13. Does this person respect me?
14. Do they respect my boundaries?
15. Are they an active listener?
16. Do they know how to emotionally regulate during conflict?
17. Can they handle constructive criticism?
18. What is their relationship like with their family and friends? Would I be okay if they treated me the same way?
19. Are they self aware? Do they have a healthy sense of self/emotional maturity?
20. Can I trust this person with my heart?
21. Can we have fun together?

Personally, I am on a mission to popularise three philosophical propositions: the self does not exist, so abandon your fantasies of ego; the world is in a constant flux, so abandon your axieties about permanence; and it is not possible to satisfy the soul, so abandon ideas of radically transforming the world, and focus instead on attitudes of repair and care.

“I think that in keeping your options open, in refusing to commit to things—career paths, relationships, anything— there is that feeling, isn’t there? that you retain the control because you haven’t allowed yourself to be pinned down to enter your life completely. You’re holding back, you could walk away from anything at any moment. And, it feels like your maintaining the control of the situation but because time just keeps on marching on, if you do that for very long you end up using up large chunks of your life you never get back just holding back from life. So, burning bridges, making irreversible commitments is a counter force to that because it acknowledges your limitations, it says, ‘I only have one life to live’, it says, ‘at some point I have to go all in on something’, it sacrifices that lovely feeling of being in control because you haven’t committed to anything. And what you get in return is to enter more fully into the real experience of being alive while you still are.”

~ Oliver Burkeman

If you resist the reality of slow progress, five years from now you’ll simply be five years older and still looking for a shortcut.