1. Your deal breakers are quality of character, not appearance or status.
2. You judge the quality and potential of a relationship by how someone behaves toward you, not how they make you feel 24/7. You hold them responsible for their actions, not your emotions.
3. You hold yourself to the same standards you do your desired partner. You don’t demand someone who is thriving in their career while you’re not putting much of an effort into yours.
4. You’re willing to be wrong. If you find fault in every relationship in which you do not glide through absolutely seamlessly without a single disagreement or minor incompatibility, you don’t have a realistic idea of what companionship looks like.
5. You do not confuse love for compatibility. Both are necessary to make a relationship work.
6. If you were to make a list of everything you expect or hope for in a relationship, each thing would relate to how your partner improves your quality of life, not how happy you appear to other people.
7. You want someone who holds their own weight, not someone who has to hold their own *and* make up for yours.
8. You don’t feel absolutely broken and lost without a partner. You could fathom what you’d do with your life if, theoretically, you were to be single for the next 25+ years. If you can’t do this, there’s a solid chance your expectations are way too high.
9. If you’ve imagined your ideal partner down to the micro-detail, and judge everyone you meet against that idea you hold in your head, rather than trying to get to know them and see how you get along, you have expectations, not standards.
10. Your idea of “how a person should be treated” is based in what you want to experience, not what you’re afraid of. For example: you want someone who you can travel with and have long conversations with, not just someone who isn’t violently disrespectful to you. The latter should be a given. 
