It may be time for us to stop dating our ‘types’

More often than not, what builds love cannot be seen but has to be felt and experienced.

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Kabelo Chabalala poses for a picture at the Pretoria News offices in the Pretoria CBD, 20 June 2018, Pretoria. Picture: Jacques Nelles

Wedding season is upon us and in full swing. Over the weekend, I was invited to a beautiful matrimonial occasion, where love, joy and the coming of two families was fully embraced. I was personally reminded of my lack of luck in this department. I am talking about the area of love, being in love and staying in love. The truth is, I also want to be the one taking a makoti (wife) one day. However, I realised that for all my adult dating life, the people around me tell me this: “Kabelo, you have a type.” This means that...

Wedding season is upon us and in full swing. Over the weekend, I was invited to a beautiful matrimonial occasion, where love, joy and the coming of two families was fully embraced.

I was personally reminded of my lack of luck in this department. I am talking about the area of love, being in love and staying in love. The truth is, I also want to be the one taking a makoti (wife) one day.

However, I realised that for all my adult dating life, the people around me tell me this: “Kabelo, you have a type.” This means that I date particular, outwardly appearing ladies. I also realised that the people I date would be ticking certain boxes of my “ideal woman”. Yet, this has not led to any long lasting relationship.

Type also translates so much into preferences. Other people prefer slim, short, dark or voluptuous women. At times these preferences or types include specific personality traits.

It got me thinking long and hard. Well, needless to say that myself and these “types” don’t last forever. Out of curiosity, I went around to ask people who have been married for more than a decade how they ended up with their respective spouses.

The most common response I got was: “Never in my wildest dreams did I think that I would even look at this person and see my lifetime partner in her or him. He was not my type. However, more than 15 years later, I wouldn’t want to be with anyone else but him.”

I know this was no solicited research. Nevertheless, more than 90% of the people I asked confirmed that they did not get married to their ideal partner. They made it crystal clear that the one they said “I do” to did not tick even half of the boxes of their ideal husband or wife.

They further said, “You are going to have natural interconnections, you will have a profound understanding of each other with this person that even words cannot fully explain.”

If what I discovered over the weekend is anything to go by, I realised that perhaps looking for “a forever” in someone called “a type” may never lead to me one day being part of any wedding season.

This also reminded me of the wise words that got engraved in my heart a few weeks ago.

An old friend of mine, Lesego Masethe, said: “I think one of the main reasons people suck at finding love is because most of us go for physical attraction and try to turn that into love, which hardly ever works. More often than not, what builds love cannot be seen but has to be felt and experienced.”

As the wedding celebration season continues, I hope that the next time I fall in love with someone, it won’t be a type.

I think it is time we stop dating our “types”, hoping for a forever with them.