If you are available to others and if you are meaningfully engaged in your own life, you will attract the right people. That is why you do not have to go out looking for people. You do not have to go out where people congregate to try to seduce them to be with you in order to prove yourself. You may make friends doing this, friends who are trying to do the same thing with you. However, this is not healthy or necessary to establish a real relationship. If you are not hiding out somewhere and if you are not trying to keep people away from you by being obnoxious, then the essence of your engagement with life will be the essence that attracts others to you.
You may notice that anyone who is doing something really important in life is rarely alone. People are always with them. Perhaps people are with them for the wrong reasons, but people are with them. Why? Because the person who is doing something meaningful in life provides purpose, meaning and direction for other people. This creates a deep attraction—deeper than sexuality, deeper than physical beauty and deeper than mental brilliance.
Therefore, do not hide from other people if you want to be in a real relationship. Do not live on the mountain top. Do not behave or dress in a manner that denies people access to you. You must find out how to constructively express yourself with others. Here you do not want to betray your values, but you do not want to betray your intention for relationship either. It is what you are doing in life, it is what you are serving in life and it is how involved you are in your life which will determine if you are ready for a real relationship. If you are simply waiting for someone to come along and provide excitement and purpose, meaning and direction for you, then you will have very little to offer and will always be looking for the other person to give you what you must provide for yourself. You may stimulate each other for a period of time, but eventually you will be disappointed and you will be disappointing.
If a primary relationship is not in view, then give yourself to making your life meaningful. You can always find people to help you do that; thus you will always have relationships. If you want to meet someone, then get involved with your life meaningfully and express this meaning to others. Be fully engaged with what you are doing.
People want to receive all kinds of benefits from their relationships. They want to escape their loneliness and their personal misery. They want to have loving affairs with an attractive person. They may want a family and a household. But what do they have to give? People say, “Well, I have myself to give.” But what is that?
Remember, relationship is about doing things together in life. You have to give yourself meaningfully here. You do not marry potential in people, not if you are intelligent. Instead, you marry capability and motivation in people. You also marry their design. What could be more frustrating than to marry someone who has a wonderful design, but no motivation? What could be more frustrating than meeting someone who has real motivation, but whose design is not compatible with yours?
Look at others to learn about relationship. People are demonstrating all manner of error to you right now. They are teaching you what to value and what not to value. They are teaching you what is real and what is not real, what to do and what not to do. You must look at others, and you must also look at yourself very carefully here. Is your life meaningful, or are you just waiting for a relationship to come along and make your life meaningful? If you are, the relationship will not make your life meaningful. There must be something in you, a deeper need, that you have experienced. That does not mean your life is demonstrating this need to any great degree, but it does mean that you are experiencing it.
Look for purpose, meaning and direction. Do not look for a perfect partner. The perfect partner will find you when you are doing what you really need to be doing. What is more attractive than someone who is doing something meaningful in life? If you want to do something meaningful in your life, you will be attracted to people who are doing something meaningful in their lives. You may say, “I can do something meaningful with this person.” This joining of purpose is the beginning of a real relationship. Perhaps this will lead to marriage or perhaps it will lead to an abiding friendship. But it must have great purpose to succeed. Do not think that marriage is the only avenue for great relationship. The student-teacher relationship can be very great. Friendships can be even greater than a marriage for the companionship they can provide.
