If Someone Says "You Complete Me," RUN! (8 page)
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Authors: Whoopi Goldberg
Tags: #Humor / Form / Anecdotes & Quotations
The question of “What do I want in my life?” is important. Figure out what you want in a person. Just in a friend. The same criteria you have for friendship should be the same criteria you have for a relationship.
Do I want to hang out with you?
Do I want to spend time with you?
There are a lot of folks who hang with people they hate. I don’t understand this. Perhaps, just perhaps, it’s fear of being alone.
This book isn’t saying, “This is the only way.” It’s saying, “This is a way that makes sense to me.” Maybe it will make sense to you.
You can try all the other stuff you want to. Expectations? You can shoot them up to the moon, but the only person that will be disappointed is you, because you’ll know if somebody is meeting or not meeting your expectations.
What do you do if and when they stop? Then it’s like, “What did I do? Who am I? Where am I?”
No. Walking into a relationship with high expectations is not a good idea.
There are a lot of the books out there telling women how to snare a man, with all the tricks you can use to get a man and keep him. But where is the book telling women to be happy in themselves, and to figure out what they want, and to become the people they want to be so that any relationship that comes out from that is based on a real connection, a real friendship, between two whole people?
So I see this book as telling people how to snare a partner for longer than we see most relationships last. After all, this is all about carefully crafting a way to find somebody you like.
The last thing I want to say in this chapter is I want to invite people to be as inventive in finding the relationships they want in their life as they are in finding prom dresses and ways to propose to people. Put that much energy in it. Be as discerning when you’re looking for people to have in your life. Take that much time to do it. That’s my opinion.
So go, take a bathroom break. I’ll wait for you.
If You Sat Your Granddaughter Down and Could Share Only Three Qualities to Look for in a Life Partner, What Would They Be?
It’s a hard question for me to answer because, again, I feel like what works for me may not work for other people. And if you’ve read this far, you know that I don’t necessarily approach these things the same way other people do.
I know that I would tell her to look for honesty, humor, and kind of a twinkle. That twinkle, that spark that means someone is engaged in his life and enjoying himself. That he is somebody who is adventurous, interested in experiencing things in life instead of just being interested in things, someone you can have real conversations with.
I believe conversation gives you a lot of insight into how comfortable you are with the person you’re with. That’s why dating is important, as well as spending real time with someone, not just a month or even a year. It may take maybe two years, maybe three years with somebody to figure out if this is somebody you want to hang out with long term. If you hang out with him for only a year and then you get married, you’re sort of stuck.
I don’t understand why people are always in such a rush to get married. I say take your time, look at the qualities of this person. Do they meet your criteria for what you are looking for in a partner? That’s the thing that is most important.
But I can’t tell my granddaughter or you what is going to make you happy. I can only tell you what works for me. So that’s why in this book, there is lots of discussion going on about various things. Why we feel the way we feel. Why we are accepting of something. Is it because we haven’t been
with the person long enough to find out what his bad or not interesting qualities are?
You kind of have to spend some real quality time with someone to come to know him, so that’s probably the advice I would give: Spend some time with this person. See if he really gives you what you’re looking for. Who knows? Maybe you’re supposed to be with him for only three months.
We fall in love so fast because people feel like “If I don’t do it now, I’m never going to have it,” but that’s not true. It might take you a long time to find a relationship. But if it takes you a long time to find it, maybe it will last longer.
That’s how I think, anyway.
Is It Okay to Have Secrets from Your Past That You Do Not Wish to Share with Your Current Partner?
You kind of have to ask yourself, “How would I feel if I discovered my partner used to be [fill in your own blank]?” It really depends on what kind of secret it is. If you’ve had five kids and they’re living in another state and you go and say, “Oh I’m just going to be a lifeguard in the state of XYZ,” and you’re really going to go take care of your kids because you have a whole separate life there, I don’t know if that’s a good secret. I don’t know if it’s good to have secrets from somebody you’re actually trying to have a life with because it always will hang on you.
On the other hand, I don’t recommend sharing everything at once with people. After some time, say three to four years, when you find that this is the person you’re
going to stay with or you hope to stay with, then it’s a pretty good idea to tell him the thing that you are the most afraid of someone finding out.
You know that if you’re afraid of somebody finding out, that’s the one thing he’s going to find out, because you’re going to subconsciously make it happen. You’re going to somehow cause this information to come out, and then you’re going to be all freaked out.
So, secrets are not good, but don’t reveal them in the first five minutes of a relationship. If you’re going to have children with somebody, though, and you’ve had DNCs or an abortion, or two or three, or a doctor has said it’s going to be difficult for you to have children because of XYZ, you might want to share that. If you’re someone who leaves hair all over the place because you actually wear a wig and he doesn’t know it, it’s good to tell him so he doesn’t stumble on you looking like Lex Luthor.
I just think it’s important to time your reveals.
Some time ago I wrote a book on manners that was meant to be for children, but now that I think about it, grown-ups could use one, too, especially when it comes to interacting with the people closest to them.
How you behave out in the world with strangers is a whole different book, but sometimes when we are in a close relationship with someone we can start taking them for granted or start being lazy about the way we treat them. This is what I mean when I say a relationship is work.
If you want to be in a relationship you can’t be lazy. You need to be nice to the people closest to you, whether it’s your parents, children, friends, or lovers.
Here are some basic rules:
Do not text or use your phone at the dinner table.
Do not answer your phone or respond to texts when you are in the middle of a conversation with an actual person in the
room. I have a friend whose boyfriend found it impossible not to answer his phone every time it rang: in restaurants, in the middle of conversations, when they were walking down the street together. She didn’t like it, but she put up with it, and to me that was a big red flag. Why was the person calling more important than the person he was sitting having dinner with? I can only hope he didn’t answer his texts or phone during sex. Unless it is a life-and-death situation or emergency, do not pick up the phone until after the meal or call the person back when your other conversation is done. You may not mean to do it, but checking your phone when you are with a flesh-and-blood person belittles the person you’re with, it makes him feel he’s not important enough to you for you to have some basic courtesy.
Clean up after yourself, whether you are a guest or living with someone or just
visiting his home. Do not treat the people around you like they are your housekeepers. Take your hair out of the drain yourself.
Put the toilet seat down. Replace the toilet paper roll. Nobody wants to get their ass wet when they fall into the toilet in the dark in the middle of the night. And nobody wants to have to leave their ass wet because there’s no toilet paper.
Use your words, your nice words:
please, thank you
,
excuse me
,
you’re welcome
.
Don’t use your bathroom words unless absolutely necessary, and don’t use words that are disrespectful, belittling, or that make someone feel small or stupid. No name calling.
Knock on the door before entering. You never really know what is going on behind a closed door. Maybe the person behind it is dancing around and singing like Tom Cruise in
Risky Business
and letting off a little steam. Or maybe he is enjoying
some self-love. He doesn’t want you barging in on him. Even when you live with someone, try to respect his privacy.
Don’t talk with food in your mouth. And if you get Dorito crumbs in the bed, please brush them off.
Cover your mouth when coughing or sneezing.
Don’t interrupt when the other person is talking. It means you aren’t listening to what she is saying.
Know when and how to apologize. A simple “I’m sorry I blah blah blah’d” can usually do the trick for the small, day-to-day things. The bigger things need a much bigger apology.
Tell the truth.