What a Girl Wants

I’m going to take a break from writing about leisure and talk about dating for a minute. I think there’s a common belief that certain people are “catches.” That is, they have the status, looks and talent to qualify them as desirable on the dating market. I’ve never particularly cared for this way of looking at things, because it implies that our value as mates is definable in absolute terms. In reality, compatibility is a relative measure. The best match for me may not be the best match for you, and most certainly won’t be the best match for my friend Jen, who has rebuffed every pass-it-on attempt I’ve ever made.

Back to work: I think that many of us enter college thinking of success in absolute terms. We want to get the best grades so we can get the best job, the highest salary, the biggest house. If you measure your own success in absolute terms, then you’ve defined the parameters of your happiness in a way that’s dependent on other people’s opinions (aka society's values). Small wonder then, that many people my age have taken a step back and said: “Forget that. What do I really want?”

What I really want is to work with cool people, write about the things that interest me, and have the flexibility to work remotely and/or take time off to travel. I’m willing to trade some financial stability for those things. But we’ll see how I feel when I’m subsisting solely on instant ramen in a few years.