I’ve often been described as “stubborn” by many of my friends and family. I am just too stuck in my ways and picky across the board — but why is that a bad thing? I’ve set high standards for those I date because I want to be with someone who understands me as a whole, challenges me to be better, and has similar morals and core values.
I believe everyone is entitled to their own opinion. However, I watched how relationships crumble through differing core beliefs. I found myself unable to trust someone fully when they expressed an opposite belief to my own. Although I can respect and understand how their life and upbringing led them to this value, it created a pit in my stomach. I felt almost betrayed because this value belittled my future career. I was made inferior when he explained his views about teachers.
I’ve had to sit crying to friends and significant others about the work, effort, and time teachers put in. Explaining for hours on end the lack of support we get. Just to be told about how I should run a classroom by someone who hasn’t spent more than two hours with a child one-on-one. I believe in representatives who protect women, people of color, teachers, and impoverished communities. To be told that supporting them is “supporting crap” broke my heart.
Dating, in any case, is hard, but dating someone with different values and mindset feels like crushing, and shrinking parts of myself — parts of myself that the single me loves to show off and express. I’ve realized I don’t want to shrink. Instead, I want to shine and thrive. To me, that would mean a potential partner would have to share my values.