Nothing Compares To You (Yes, That’s Sinead O’Connor. Sorry.)
Posted by Moose on February 27th, 2009. Filed under: Love.One nice – and highly entertaining – thing about not having a partner is making mental lists of qualities that partner will have when you do find him. Obviously, it’s much harder to do this when coupled up, because if you decide you want a man who gazes ardently off into the distance while translating Spanish poetry into his native Polish and your current boyfriend can barely decipher the Taco Bell menu, it will result in some uncomfortable soul-searching. Best done when unattached.
Ponderings of this nature can provide endless amusement in the grocery store line: “He will be half man, half eagle!” Or while waiting at the microwave for your looming coworker to finish heating his frozen lunch, a frozen lunch which apparently requires the cooking time of a 12-pound Thanksgiving turkey: “He will be a cunning blend of Che Guevara meets James Bond meets Jeeves!”
I find myself listening carefully when friends talk or write about their husbands/fiances/boyfriends – absorbing what appears to work for other people while reflecting on what I want, what might blend with my own quirks and principles. It’s fun, is what it is, especially when you’re the sort of person who enjoys making lists and inventing mythical creatures who fly, give back rubs, mastermind guerrilla campaigns, and make a really nice sidecar.
My mental list now has a new addition. In the past few days, several people have described the competition for their current or future husbands with a phrase that’s both elegant in its simplicity and rather arresting in its feeling: “No one else really compared.”
No one else compares. If that isn’t a good standard for a partner, I don’t know what is.
When ideas come at me in close succession – multiple instances of the same wording, the same song heard six times in one day (though that’s usually just an indicator that all the 22-year-olds working the store counters on Valencia Street harbor an overly-passionate affinity for the Decemberists), little conveniences that seem to be herding me in a certain direction - I like to take note.
Like when I decided to try eating raw and a friend said, “Really? Because I have a juicer I don’t need, do you want it?” Indeed I did. That thing can juice carrots, whole apples, beets, and stray cats without even straining its motor. (Also: Don’t ask me about the raw thing. After the holidays and being busy and life in general, just…don’t.) Or when I piled up a stack of books on the counter of my favorite bookstore in my own small attempt to keep them in business, and my total for a book on writing and several books by a writer I’d emulate if I thought I could get away with it was $47.47, making the cashier yelp, “Ooh! That almost never happens! It must be a sign.” I made appropriately impressed noises and asked, “A sign for what?” She offered me a look that stated, as clearly as if she were speaking English and drawing me a supplemental diagram, “I don’t know, I’m just the cashier. You figure it out.”
Maybe these synchronicities are little signs to keep me on the right path, maybe they’re merely convenient, maybe they have no more meaning than that which I thrust upon them. Either way, I feel like I get closer to where I want to be when I’m paying attention. I’m learning, slowly, to get my head out of the sky and clouds and my own little stories, and a bit closer to the ground, say 5 feet and 7 inches above it.
When I hear so many people calling their loves incomparable, not so much with the “He is a prince among men” nonsense, but rather “No one else really lights me up in quite the same way”, I think: Yes. That’s what I want. Sinead O’Connor notwithstanding, I think it’s a solid addition to my list. And far more workable than “Half man, half eagle – because that would be really fucking sweet.”
February 27th, 2009 at 12:35 pm
That is a good standard. I always felt like no one before ever “got” me like my husband did/does, and if that’s not an attractive quality (understanding and appreciating my whack-osity) I don’t know what it.
February 27th, 2009 at 12:38 pm
My typo is bugging me too much not to comment again. Obviously that last word should be “is” not “it.”
February 27th, 2009 at 12:41 pm
Anyone who appreciates my whack-osity really IS a prince among men. And it’s nice to know that someone gets you. To get and be gotten. Yes.
February 27th, 2009 at 1:28 pm
I don’t know. Half-man, half-eagle sounds amazing. He could change all the light bulbs and clean the rain gutters!
I don’t think I ever had one of those lightning bolt moments with my husband, I just realized that there was no one I’d rather spend all of my time with.
Apparently in high school my husband came home from prom and sagely said, “Three hours is a long time to spend with just one person.” HA
So a lifetime is a long time to spend with a person. I’d just choose the one who keeps you coming back for more.
February 27th, 2009 at 2:18 pm
That is honestly the best standard I have ever heard. “Nobody else compares”.
That is the way that it should be.
February 27th, 2009 at 5:28 pm
I hope you are not waiting for someone to make you a sidecar. As it turns out, it is not only easy, it is budget-friendly when the brandy goes on sale.
February 27th, 2009 at 8:13 pm
My mantra is similar to “nobody else compares.” When I need to sum up the Pretend Husband and why we work, I say, “I found the nicest guy I ever dated, and married him.”
February 28th, 2009 at 8:49 pm
nothing compares, especially when everything else was crap. for me, anyway. ha ha. actually, nothing compares, in my experience, to mine.
February 28th, 2009 at 8:50 pm
p.s. I always thought a Griffin was pretty hot. you get a lion, man AND eagle.
February 28th, 2009 at 9:00 pm
“No one else compares.” I can’t think of a more perfect way to describe happiness with another person.
February 28th, 2009 at 10:27 pm
The surest way to meet someone perfect is to fall in love (with them).
- an approximation of a quote contributed to that crotchety old guy from 60 minutes
Silly though it may seem, it’s worth pondering. Are they perfect because you love them or do you love them because they’re perfect?
I love my husband, which is delightful, and I like him, too, which is the second best thing I could hope for next to him liking me. He thinks I’m the bees’ knees. I look for *that* quality in a partner.
March 2nd, 2009 at 7:52 am
One thing I’d add to your list – Not Annoying in the morning. And also – knows how to work a freaking alarm clock.
But, if these are the biggest irritations, I have it pretty good. Good luck to you. As much as I complain about him, I can’t imagine anyone else putting up with my bullsh*t.
March 2nd, 2009 at 7:44 pm
Actually, looking at the world – and all the events and people in your life – symbolically is useful in figuring out if what you’re doing is on “your” path. Like having a cashier remark on the cost of books by a writer you’d like to emulate calls your attention to the experience and the writer once again. Perhaps that comment was simply the universe telling you to pay attention to what calls you – in spite of fears.
March 3rd, 2009 at 10:12 am
My husband couldn’t be more like my father. From his dry sense of humor to his dark features to his incessant patience to his inevitable manner of saying offensive things about people WITHIN EARSHOT OH MY GOD KILL ME NOW.
That incomparable thing is true, though. I can’t say that I ever expected to marry a man who had so much in common with my dad, but there just wasn’t anyone else who could make me laugh and make me crazy and make me fall in love all at once. He’s nothing like what I had my list made out as (um, about that…) and he’s a nut, but he’s perfect for me.
When you find the right person, it’ll be worth the waiting and the wondering and the imagining a half-eagle bad-ass. Promise.
March 3rd, 2009 at 5:14 pm
Mine is currently that I have to like them more than Monte Enebro cheese. Because right now? I’m ready to just marry the cheese and call it a day.
Although your version sounds more grown-up. Perhaps that’s what I’ll tell people.