In the age where people are given the freedom to express their thoughts openly, society has come up with guidelines, a manual, of the type of relationship one ought to be in, the kind of person someone “deserves”. I have half-read articles that talked about what you should look for, how someone is supposed to show you they love you. If that is not what you are getting out of someone you are with, it is time to hit the road, wait for the right person.

Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but with all due respect to everyone who carries a description of their ideal mate in mind, I have a different take in all these.

I too had a checklist of what my prince charming should be—it got me frustrated. After years of overthinking and overanalyzing, I have learned something that finally led me to my happily ever-after. Allow me to share.

No two individuals are the same—in the way they think, in the way they feel, and in the way they act on their thoughts and feelings. And love is a very complex thing. I cannot gauge my importance to someone by the number of minutes it takes him to respond to my text messages. Love is not about who took whose hand first, it is about the hand that never let go. It doesn’t matter to me anymore who initiated and who reciprocated.

I am not delusional. Sure, one-sided is excruciatingly painful. Unrequited love in a relationship is exhausting. I am not in one. I am in a real relationship—one with ups and downs. I am with a human being — with strong and weak points.

I taught myself to send a message and not wait for a response. I have a life and so does he. If he responds immediately, great. If it takes him half an hour, that’s okay too. I taught myself to appreciate the little things he does for me, instead of counting the ones he didn’t do. And because I understand how he operates, I should know what he is and what he’s not. I taught myself to not turn him into someone he is not, just to be my ideal partner. I taught myself to embrace the flaws.

I taught myself to be the person who calms the storms in his life. To be the person whom he knows believes in him and in who he wants to be even if it seems bleak at the moment, one he can be honest with about anything, without qualms. And I taught myself to NEVER expect he’d do the exact same things for me, in the exact same way I did them.

I learned that the only person I should be asking for what I deserve is me. My happiness should not depend on someone’s actions. My world should not revolve around someone that it comes crashing down when they do something I do not “deserve”.

I found contentment and peace when I stopped demanding what I thought I deserved. Instead, I made a choice. I chose to not have expectations and to accept what comes with my choice. I am choosing to be with him. I am choosing to love the good, and the bad, the same way he’s accepting the bad with my good, the eccentricity with my regular. He shows me his heart and allows me to show mine in my own way: the way that might not have been, at times, what he thought he “deserved”.

Overtime, his ways became mine, and mine became his. We finally learned to bend over backwards to give each other what we thought the other deserves. It is a process, for us it took many years, but we got there. And I am glad I chose to wait—not for the right person, but for my person to be the right one.