How do you imagine your ideal lover? What is he like? How tall? What does he like, what does he do? Have you ever thought that not everyone may like your ideal image? Essentially, our ideals are relative: they are ideal only for ourselves, but for another person they may even be disgusting. Some people like blondes, and some like brunettes. Some are tall, some are low. Nowadays, thin girls are in fashion, but some men still prefer girls with a “skinny” body. And if you look at paintings from different eras, you can’t help but be surprised at how different ideas about beauty were at different times. In fact, any of your strong qualities, everything that you consider to be your advantage, another person can perceive as a disadvantage, it will push him away . So do we have any merit at all? Maybe we are made up of nothing but shortcomings? Or, on the contrary, there are no shortcomings in principle? Is your ideal lover really ideal? Does he/she know what “torsion fields” are? Will he be able to cut out the appendix if necessary? Build a house? Fix the microwave? How about building a space shuttle (well, what if there’s a war, you need to save yourself...)? Around now you are probably asking the question: “Why?” But for some it may be important! All of the above (except for the shuttle) are the real wishes of some of my friends. And for some, it is important that their loved one smokes or does not clean the house at all. And for some men, it is important that their beloved does not work (accordingly, education is also useless). And my favorite example: one day a girl reproached my brother for being... not a womanizer! Everything about him is good, he would still be a womanizer... (By the way, we were puzzled and asked other women: for many, “womanizer” is a positive trait!) It would seem that these are shortcomings, but not for them. So how can anyone love you with all your flaws? Easy and with a song! The paradox is that you have no idea what your shortcomings are. Do you think small breasts or beer belly? No such luck! For your other half, your main drawback may be... Whatever, you won’t guess. The main rule of goal setting is to describe your goal in as much detail as possible. Here is a person describing his ideal lover: height, hair color, profession, income level, whether there are children. And some of this will definitely turn out to be unimportant. Because the image of the person we want to see next to us depends on our personal needs. We want to live in abundance, not to worry about not having enough money - which means the ideal should be to earn good money, for example. Therefore, shortcomings begin to be divided into two groups: those with which we can put up with, and those with which we cannot put up with. The second ones are precisely related to our needs. If a “shortcoming” interferes with the satisfaction of a need, then it is no longer possible to put up with it. And we have an image of an ideal self. And it is also relative, ideal only for ourselves. And he also has shortcomings, those with which we personally can come to terms, and those with which we cannot. And in order to accept yourself and love yourself, it would be useful to understand what needs these shortcomings prevent you from meeting. Read more about self-love here and here.