"The Most Important Relationship Advice You'll Ever Get," From Dan Savage

The Price of Admission: Dan Savage on the Myth of "The One" and the Unsettling Secret of Lasting Love

"What is love but acceptance of the other, whatever he is," Anaïs Nin wrote in a letter to her then-lover, Henry Miller. And yet that acceptance is a "dynamic interaction" which we seem to be increasingly unwilling to acquiesce, going to excessive lengths in our stubborn quest to avoid compromising. But as crappy as compromise can feel at the moment it is made, anyone in a long-term relationship can attest that it is the fertilizer of romance.

Three years before the release of his provocative compendium American Savage: Insights, Slights, and Fights on Faith, Sex, Love, and Politics (public library), writer and It Gets Better Project creator Dan Savage answers a reader's question about romance deal-breakers and, in the process, offers some of the most important relationship advice you'll ever get:

There is no settling down without some settling for. There is no long-term relationship not just putting up with your partner's flaws, but accepting them and then pretending they aren't there. We like to call it in my house "paying the price of admission." ... You can't have a long-term relationship with someone unless you're willing to identify the prices of admission you're willing to pay – and the ones you're not. But the ones you're not – the list of things you're not willing to put up with – you really have to be able to count [them] on one hand...

People, when they're young, have this idea... "There's someone out there who's perfect for me"... "The one."

"The one" does not fucking exist. "The one" is a lie. But the beautiful part of the lie is that it's a lie you can tell yourself. Any long-term relationship that's successful is really a myth that two people create together ... and myths are built of lies, and there's usually some kernel of truth...

When you think about it, you meet somebody for the first time, and they're not presenting their warts-and-all self to you – they're presenting their idealized self to you, they're leading with their best. And then, eventually, you're farting in front of each other. Eventually, you get to see the person who is behind that facade of their best, and they get to see the person your facade, your lie-self – this lie that you presented to them about who you really are. And what's beautiful about a long-term relationship, and what can be transformative about it, is that I pretend every day that my boyfriend is the lie that I met when I first met him. And he does that same favor to me – he pretends that I'm that better person than I actually am. Even though he knows I'm not. Even though I know he's not. And we then are obligated to live up to the lies we told each other about who we are – we are then forced to be better people than we actually are, because it's expected of us by each other.

And you can, in a long-term relationship, really make your lie-self come true – if you're smart, and you demand it of them, and you're willing to give it to them... That's the only way you become "the one" – it's because somebody is willing to pretend you are. "The one" that they were waiting for, "the one" they wanted,their "one." Because you're not – nobody is. No two people are perfect for each other, ever, period – No two people are 100% sexually compatible, no two people are 100% emotionally compatible, no two people want the same things. And if you can't reconcile yourself to that, you will have no relationships that last longer than two months.

And you know what? It's not going to be their fault – it's going to be your fault.

Complement with the psychology of how "positivity resonance" shapes the way we love and Henri-Frédéric Amiel's 19th-century meditations on love and its demons.