Peanut's Question of the Week

In my therapy session today, I was talking about certain issues with my parents and their expectations of me (which I know most people can relate to). In relation to one specific topic, I was telling him that ever since I was little I always wanted to end up marrying someone that was just a friend & that I all of a sudden developed feelings for (I think it's so cute to be like: "Hey remember when I found you obnoxious or annoying" when we are 50 sitting around on our asses together). My mother envisions a totally different way for me to find someone to marry & continuously drops hints and tries to get me to change my expectations & thoughts about how my future will pan out.

Do we actually keep ourselves from potential relationships because of our own rules, expectations & idiosyncrasies? OF COURSE the answer is YES. We all do. This brings me to my question: BUT is this something that we should be concerned about & work on to change? Should we try & rid of our rules and expectations of things in order to broaden our scope?

According to the book I am reading, "Now, Discover Your Strengths" I would like to say no. The book talks about focusing on your unique talents (which it describes as synapses in your brain). The less synapses you have & the more you focus on them, the stronger your strengths will be (and the more effective you will be as a person). BUT if you just try to create more synapses, you ignore the strongly connected ones (weakening them) & just create a lot more weak connections.

IN OTHER WORDS (in peanut terms -- since I don't like complicated words or sentences), you are forcing something upon yourself that is unnatural.

This relates to my question because: just because i may broaden my scope or my pool of guys doesn't necessarily mean that I will better my chance of ending up with a 'better' (whatever that means) man which we women tend to think automatically equates to a better life and marriage.

Does this make sense? Any opinions?