Ideal Expectations

When I was a young and impressionable teen, I fell in love with Grace Livingston Hill books. These are a wholesome romance type novel promoting Christian values and exemplifying traditional Christian relationships. The books all follow a similar trope in which a young woman finds herself in some sort of crisis, often involving orphaned younger siblings, and poverty, where she makes a choice to put every one above herself, to look after little ones at her own expense by giving anything possible including food and warm blankets, clothing, and so on. In other words, she gives up everything for someone else. And then, in sweeps the rich good looking kind man to save the day. I must have read hundreds of these books, all similar. And I loved them.

The impact of this was not necessarily great for my life expectations however. I have spent most of my adult life watching for the gentle Christian man who was going to come sweep me off my feet. He would see me, really see me, and teach me how loveable and worthy I am. He would be my Prince, my hero.

I feel a bit like I was set up with unrealistic expecctations, always looking for the ideal man thinking all I had to do was be humble, gentle, generous, innocent and demure. I was under the mistaken impression that being strong, independant, confident, would be in opposition to attracting my ideal.

In 2026, I am heading into my 60s and have yet to find my partner. I have changed my expectations, and I am certainly much stronger and independant yet the ideal lingers in the background that one day the best man will appear out of the ether and will really see me and find me worth his time and attention.