How do you like your eggs?

The thoughts of this dreary Sunday were given a new direction when my roommate decided that a good use of our time would be watching "Runaway Bride." Despite my love of Julia Roberts and romantic comedies in general, I had never actually seen this film. It was indeed enjoyable and a good counter-agent to the gloominess that was permeating my day. Once the movie was over, I felt a theme resonate with me, and the more I thought about it, the more aspects of relationships seemed to tie into this.

The theme is simply ones self. In the movie, it comes out that Robert's character has never settled into who she is and what she wants. Her engagements alwats come with her acting in a way that she can be who they want. This is artfully demonstrated by the fact that each former suitor claims that she likes her eggs the same way that they do. By the end, Roberts realizes that she in fact likes her eggs completely differently from all the guys she had been with. (Her finally landing on loving Eggs Benedict certainly gets a thumbs up from me).

I have talked before about the statement that people often need to get themselves together before they can be in a real relationship. I have often debunked this notion. This movie in some ways challenged my thoughts, but in the end, actually only strengthen my argument. People don't need their lives to be in order. If anything a relationship can often be a catalyst to taking our lives to new heights and bringing in line some of the loose edges that we allow to creep up in your singledom. What we do have to have is our sense of self.

I have seen many people run from relationships because "they weren't in the right place." While sometimes this is indeed true, often it is simply an excuse to continue to live in fear and run away from something serious or potentially painful or difficult. What if often overlooked is when people aren't actually ready, because they don't know themselves. They can't decide what type of eggs to order, what makes them truly happy. No other person is going to provide the pieces to our cosmic puzzle if we don't know what kind of pictures we want our pieced together puzzle to look like. When we seek out people to give us meaning or definition to our lives, we simply assume their meaning and definitions, or assume those that they are looking for. This can never make us happy, because we aren't fitting with what we need.

People weren't meant to create their personalities to fit someone else, or to become someone's mirror, though we all know people who often fall into this trap. I hold that a real relationship is "perfect" when two people come together with their individual wants and needs, and somehow with all that held within them, somehow mesh. Sometimes this means similar wants and needs, sometimes it's just when they work out. I would never need a guy who would love to wolf down my Eggs Benedict, but he better be as happy with my love of them as I am with his Country Scramble. Who knows if we will find a person who will make the same order we do. What matters is if we're both happy with the choices that each makes for themselves, and more importantly, the fact that they know what it is that they want to order.