Cooking and Dating with Arbitrary Rules

Tonight I was out with someone who said that she was “too young” to get married, and that she wasn’t going to get married until she was at least X years old. I’ve heard rules like that from female friends of mine more and more often of late, and it just doesn’t make sense to me.

To me, those type of rules are like a recipe. Recipes are great because they give you a good starting point. They guide you to making something that will approximate the original creation of the chef who wrote down the recipe. Recipes do have their place. However, cooking, like dating and marriage, is ultimately a matter of the heart. We cook because we love to eat, and because we want to enjoy the food we’re eating. If you’re in the midst of cooking and a recipe calls for a teaspoon of salt, but you taste it and know you’d like it better with just a smidge more salt, I hope you add that salt. At the end of the day, cooking is very personal, and it’s an act of love. The recipe doesn’t matter, as long as you love what you’re eating.

The same thing is true of arbitrary rules about dating. Rules can sometimes allow us to quickly disqualify people who have a low probability of being our lifelong partner. Of course, rules can also cause us to disqualify people who, in fact, would make fantastic lifelong partners. A good rule should, on average, disqualify more bad partners than good partners. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have any rules, and I’d also be lying if I said that I didn’t break those rules on a very regular basis. (What can I say? I’m terrible at following my own rules.)

However, when you meet someone or you’re in the midst of a relationship and there’s good chemistry between you, you’re likely to disregard any rules you’ve made about who you will/won’t date. Something inside you tells you that you like the person. If you’re a decent cook, you’ll disregard a recipe and change the quantities to suit your tastes if you’re craving a different taste than the recipe produces. If you’re a romantic, you’ll forget your rules and follow your heat when it comes to your relationship. The rules really just don’t matter. (N.B. I will admit that sometimes following your heart in a relationship will open you up to a world of hurt, but I’m one of those people who believes that the flip-side of opening yourself up to a whole new level of love completely outweighs being more vulnerable to hurt.)

Now, back to these girls who have told me they don’t want to get married until age X. First, I know someone out there is going to say that these girls probably are just saying that because they’re not married and they feel bad about that, so they’ve made up this rule to tell people as a cover. I can tell you that in each instance, these girls have been in long-term relationships, and could have easily been married if that’s what they’d wanted, but they chose not to get married in favor of following their rule.

When I teach people how to cook, one of the first things I try to do is to get them to let go of their fascination with recipes. I don’t want them limited by arbitrary rules; I’d rather they use cooking as a way to express themselves, and to make what appeals to them.

I would give the same instruction with regard to dating and relationships. I wish people would give up their fascination with rules, and just enjoy people in their lives for who they are. Let relationships develop organically, and take them where they go. If that means you get married before or after you planned, well then so be it. If you’re already married and you’re finding that rules are getting in the way of loving your spouse, isn’t your relationship with your spouse more important than some rule? The important thing is that you’re happy, and that you love the person you’re with.

Keep your rule books and recipe cards handy for reference, but cook and love freely: don’t be weighed down by arbitrary rules. You’ll find over time that you will eat and love better.