Why I spent years confusing potential with partnership

By Regine Rauin | When Rooms Tell Stories

 

I’m an interior architect.

Usually, that is a rather wonderful thing.

I can walk into a room that looks as though someone has exploded a furniture catalogue in it and I don’t think: Oh God.

I think:

“Interesting. There’s potential here.”

Professionally, this is extremely useful.

Privately, it can cause certain difficulties.

For example, with men.

Because at some point I realised that I had started looking at people rather like I look at houses.

I didn’t simply see someone and think:

“I like him.”

I saw potential.

Character.

Depth.

Dark corners.

Stories.

Wounds.

Talents.

And, naturally, the wonderful possibility of turning all of that into something rather magnificent.

In other words:

I saw a renovation project.

And found it fascinating.

Very fascinating.

Occasionally, even rather sexy.

Which should probably have been my first clue that something was slightly off.

Because a building site is fascinating.

You can knock down walls.

Change the layout.

Expose what has been hidden behind the plaster.

Discover unexpected things.

You never quite know what you’ll find behind the next wall.

The problem is that, eventually, you have to admit something:

I don’t actually want to live on a building site.

I don’t want to sit on a dusty concrete floor in the evening thinking:

Well, it’s a bit draughty at the moment, but there’s definitely potential.

I don’t want to wait three years for the heating to work.

Or the emotional wiring.

Or the bathroom.

Or for someone to finally work out where the fuse box is.

I want to come home and think:

“Ah. This is lovely.”

It sounds terribly simple.

It isn’t.

Because suddenly I realised that I had been confusing two very different things:

potential and partnership.

I was attracted to people who had something to discover.

That can be a wonderful quality.

I love people with edges.

People who have lived.

People with stories.

People who haven’t been polished into a completely predictable version of themselves.

But there is an important distinction:

A person can have depth without being a renovation project.

He can be complicated.

He can have quirks.

He can have a past.

He can have shadows he is still learning to understand.

But he shouldn’t need a partner to finish the job.

And that was the part I hadn’t understood.

I thought my ability to see things other people overlooked was automatically an excellent foundation for a relationship.

It isn’t.

It’s a brilliant foundation for a WOHNUNGS-READING.

With a man, I don’t necessarily need it.

Because I don’t want someone whose vision I can eventually bring to life.

I want an equal.

Someone who knows who he is.

Who has his own opinions.

His own friends.

His own interests.

His own story.

And, ideally, a functioning heating system.

 

Perhaps one of the most useful questions when dating is this:

Do I want this person – or am I fascinated by the project he represents?

Those are two completely different things.

The first says:

“I want to share my life with you.”

The second says:

“I’m curious what you might become.”

And once you separate the two, an astonishing amount becomes clearer.

Because suddenly, potential is no longer a qualification.

It is simply a possibility.

And possibilities are lovely.

But you can’t sit on them.

You can’t build a relationship with them.

You can only build a life with the person who is actually there now.

Not the person who might emerge after three years of emotional renovation.

 

These days, I would therefore ask a man a very different question.

Not:

“What could he become?”

But:

“What does my life feel like when he is part of it?”

Can I relax beside him?

Can I disagree with him?

Can I rely on him?

Can I laugh with him?

Can I lean on him?

Does he have room for me?

And, importantly:

Does he have room for himself in his own life?

Because I don’t want to rescue anyone.

I don’t want to optimise anyone either.

I want to live with someone who already has a home within himself.

And perhaps that is the difference between an exciting building site and a home:

At a building site, you keep asking:

“What could this become?”

At home, you think:

 

“I could stay here.”

About the Author

I'm Regine Rauin, also known as Mystic Maveress.

I read rooms the way other people read tarot cards.

And every now and then...

...I write a book.

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🗝️ Because many of the answers are already living with you.