Re: Unicorn Hunters. Train-wreck fanatics. Volvo "settlers" - 3 Types Of Daters
Relationships that last a lifetime are not about unicorns or visions in bubbles. They are about peeling back the layers of a man/woman and discovering whether they are capable of loving you when it isn't easy or convenient for them, not throwing in the towel when things don't quite go their way, and vice versa. They are about knowing that when a sick child has kept you both up all night praying for them, when you both get a little grumpy from overwork, when difficult financial times come, when your relationship is attacked by those who would love to see it fail, or when they look up at you from their deathbed, they know and you know that it was worth every drop of blood, sweat and tears to have shared your heart, laughter and core of your being with them.
They are worth holding out for.
Please take note that this statement is not about placing someone in a 'category'...
Rather, it is looking at the person as an individual with a multitude of characteristics which all stem from the 'core' person that they are deep within.
It is a "departure" from trying to generalize people to the point of confounding those individual characteristics of the person - as if each characteristic belonged in a certain definite 'category' that could be looked at and
judged as "good", "bad", "better", "worse", etc.
While it cannot be disputed that certain particular individual characteristics are most definitely "good", "bad", "better", "worse", etc. (especially, as compared to the Biblical standard) -- in general, the nature of the
combination of the individual characteristics actually define the "attractiveness" of the person as a suitable life-long mate.
Indeed, what some might consider a "volvo" - others will consider a "mustang" -- it depends on what is important to the one who is doing the "looking"...
In short, the more closely your "world-view" -
complete with the priorities-of-life and all of the other vitally-important-details that come with it - is aligned with their "world-view" -- the more likely the both of you will be willing to "stick it out" together - standing on the "common ground" and having the "common understanding" that the two of you share.
Human beings are each a complex mixture of individual characteristics and traits. Therefore, it will be a complex thing at best for us to find a suitable life-long mate.
Some will be willing to "hold out" for seventy years out of a life-expectancy of seventy-five years to make sure that they live the "best possible" [five years] with the "best possible" mate. Others will be willing to "settle" for more years of "shared contentment" with a "perfectly-suitable-if-not-absolutely-perfect" mate (who they may very well discover later was 'the perfect mate' because they were "compatible enough" to make the time shared "as good as any that could be expected in a lifetime").
In the end, what is "worth holding out for" are the particular characteristics and traits that we believe will define the base-level-necessity of a life that will support any number of scenarios that may be built upon it.
It is all about having the proper priorities, deciding what is truly important to you, having an awareness of the true nature of things, and making good decisions...
It also helps to listen to what God - through the Holy Spirit - is trying to tell you. 
(A vitally important part of the process...)
.
I would hope I wouldn't be someone that someone settled for. How horrific to think about oneself in that way!! I will not be settled for. I will be loved as God loved the Church! 
Say it ain't so.