Why I Didn’t Settle For the Wrong Guy
The author Jo Piazza and the love of her life
Everyone I knew—my closest friends, my family, my gynecologist—all told me to settle. All of these people, who had my very best wishes at heart, wanted me to commit the rest of my life to someone who was not going to make a very good husband, to someone that I didn’t actually want to marry and someone I didn’t want to be with. But, they all told me statements like: “It’s better than being alone. At least you can say you were married. Divorced is better than old and never married. Get a baby out of it and then figure out what to do.” The baby one was the worst and it’s something I’ve heard from plenty of female acquaintances, “Get married, get the baby, and get out.” But I didn’t do it. I didn’t settle. My ex-boyfriend was my best friend. But that is it. We were friends. And that could have been enough. But it wasn’t.
Last year I was 34 years old and single and this really seemed to upset people. I however, was unfazed. In December I took a two week long trip to the Four Seasons Safari Lodge in the Serengeti with a girlfriend. A buddymoon, we called it. You can’t get away with doing those kinds of things when you have a significant other. And while I was there I bought myself a ring that was just as nice and just as expensive as most engagement rings. “I bought myself an engagement ring,” I told my friend. “Well someone had to,” she responded. I love the ring. It is Tanzanite which is more rare than diamonds, and has both white and yellow gold. You can really wear it with anything. It is shiny and sparkly and I love looking at it in the sunlight. The ring symbolized that I was going to be completely ok with or without the guy. I didn’t have to settle.
That was six months ago. Today I look at my right hand and see my slim, diamond eternity band. It’s the engagement ring I received last month from the love of my life. The only reason I met him at all was because I didn’t settle.
We met on a boat in the Galapagos. I hadn’t packed a single cute outfit. Not one. I didn’t wear a speck of makeup for eight days. I ran around on the beach like no one was watching me—and it turns out someone was.
I really didn’t expect this. At first glance, Nick wasn’t my type. I’ve dated very buttoned-up bankery types my entire life. Nick has long hair, a kind face, an easy smile and he is very comfortable in flip-flops. He camps. He climbs mountains. He was once stalked by a mountain lion and survived to tell me about it. I thought he was handsome, but that was about it. He later told me that he noticed me when I got on the plane. “I thought you were the prettiest girl there, but I figured I would never see you again,” he said.
For the next seven days he intrigued me. I found excuses to start conversations. “What exactly is a blue-footed booby again?” Even, “Can you help me with my camera?” But sparks didn’t really fly until our last night at sea. By then I was a goner. We both were. Then we went on the most ambitious second date of all time—camping in Joshua Tree. I’d never camped before so Nick just showed up to meet me at the Los Angeles airport with a tent in hand. We both left that trip and told our friends we had found the person we would marry. It was that fast, that certain, and that powerful.
A couple of months later in Paris, we said the words marriage in a hotel room overlooking the Eiffel Tower. If I didn’t know this story was true, I would call bulls–t on myself right about now. It just sounds too good. But in the past five months I have learned that all of the clichés that I thought were such bullshit are all true: “When you finally meet the right person, you just know.When it is right, it is easy. You find love when you least expect it.”
Everyone could settle. We could settle for that guy who told us we were chubby, or the one whose mother was a witch. We could settle for the guy we know is in the closet, or the one who desperately wants to have sex with other people. We could settle for a passionless marriage or one based on convenience. We could do all of these things, but we don’t have to.
I look back at all of my serious boyfriends and think I could have married any of them. I could have married them and I would be divorced by now. That wasn’t a risk I was willing to take.
Most of the other guys I dated before were perfectly fine, adequate and acceptable. But here is what they didn’t do: They didn’t love me for being confident, smart, successful and happy. They didn’t love the broken bits of me, the parts that no one else knows about, the parts I still have to work on. Anyone can be seduced and beguiled when everything is happy and fluffy. It’s harder to love something when things go sideways. I needed someone to love me sideways.
For the first time in my life I have a partner who wants to be here to make both of our lives better and every day all I want is to find ways to do that together. He fills in holes in the narrative of my life that I didn’t even know existed.
This is why I waited.
Jo Piazza is the author of the new must-read novel The Knockoff
