November 7, 2013 - Written by: Jon Carroll

What Makes You Happy in a Relationship?

What makes YOU happy in a relationship?

I asked myself that question nearly a decade ago. After a string of hopeless relationships that seemed to fizzle out all too quickly, I was single and lonely. So I made a decision. I sat down and thought long and hard about what I would want from a relationship and the kind of person who I would want to share my life with. I promised myself that I wouldn’t settle for anything less. Most importantly, I made the list short and simple. The list read:

Has to be funny
Good taste in music
Share my other cultural interests

It was important that I didn’t allow myself to be fussy or forever damn myself to a life of bachelordom. I felt that finding someone who met all three would give us both enough of a foundation to build a meaningful relationship with.

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And so there was Jen.

I’d seen Jen out week after week after week. The beauty of living in a smaller city like Plymouth is that everyone ends up going to the same places. There’s a handful of decent places to drink and party and the like-minded gravitate to those venues. Most of my solid friendships have sprung out of the nightlife in Plymouth.

But it was different with Jen. Initially, I didn’t know anyone who knew her and it drove me a little crazy. She was this magnetic, Amazonian, red-head who seemed to always have a party going on around her. It was a real thunderstruck moment. For months, friends would encourage me to go and chat to her but I could never truly strike up the courage. At the time, I had this big, bushy mane of a haircut. Jen has told me subsequently, that if I had tried to talk to her, she would have brushed me away. Timing, it would seem, was the real key to our future.

A close friend of mine offered to play Cupid and give me a proper introduction to Jen and our first introduction had me mentally tripping over myself as I tried to impress and woo her without seeming like a complete idiot. I came across as one anyway. Jen thought I was “brash and arrogant” whilst I got a feel that maybe she did tick all three points of the list.

I walked her home that night and she invited me in. Her flat confirmed everything to me. She had a great taste in music and she was a girl that liked all the geeky stuff that I was passionate about. The only snag: she was “kind of” seeing another guy. A guy I had gone to school with and detested. My heart sank when I found that out. But I was determined. This was the girl that I wrote the list for.

Over the next few weeks, I was persistent. We had a spark that I continued to fuel. We made each other laugh a lot and I was clear about my feelings for her. I don’t think I’ve ever been brushed off so many times by a girl, but I couldn’t let myself give in. Jen says that I “wore her down”. The guy she was seeing soon faded away. I’d say that she finally came round to how awesome I am. I can still be brash and arrogant.

“The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed.” – Carl Jung

I think the most important thing is that I made a strong decision to be happy and I chased that decision until it happened. We don’t always allow ourselves that luxury and sometimes it can make us very unhappy. After a lot of turbulence and hard work (I’ll get to that), we’re still strong after eight years together. But I’m still thankful that I asked myself the question: