Must the Girl You’re with Be a Perfect Fit?

When it comes to choosing girls, especially for long-term relationships, how perfect a fit must a girl be? Can you be too picky, waiting for too clear a sign?

I know a guy who has these baffling (to me) relationships.

His stated objective is to find a wife.

He will find women who enter into relationships with him, whom he considers marriageable. These women talk to him about wanting something serious, tell him he's the best and most exciting guy they've been with; some of them even talk about marriage with him, or about him impregnating them.

He never moves things forward and always keeps his relationships at a kind of "casual+" level.

The women get frustrated and begin asking him what he wants with them, causing drama, telling him they cannot get a read on him and don't know what his intentions are.

He takes this as a sign their interests are not aligned, and begins having doubts / pulling back.

Eventually women break up with him in frustration, which he concludes meant they were never right for each other to begin with. Or sometimes he breaks up with them in annoyance at the drama, concluding they weren't looking for what he is.

He then begins picking up again, still looking for a wife. He's been repeating this process, over and over, for 20 years. He often says he thinks when he finds the right woman, it will just click.

With his most recent girlfriend, after she laid all her cards out on the table, told him he's the best guy she's been with in a long, long time, told him she wants a baby with him, then said she can't get a read on what he wants, his response to her was, "Well since you're not clear on what you want, we can take it day by day."

When I saw this confounding display, it got me thinking about the psychology there.

Because I have seen other men do things like this too.

And to me it's always looked inexplicable! What is a guy like this thinking, in doing things this way?

Well, it was inexplicable, until I really dug into it.

Today I'm going to talk about how people evaluate other people's wants and aims.

I'm going to talk about deciding what things someone says or wants matter vs. which don't.

Then we're going to talk about how people decide who's a fit for them -- and how they decide who isn't.