Inside inner authors world. Life goes on

I have come to believe that the kind of relationship I want may actually be well suited to beginning at a distance. Not because I want to avoid intimacy, but because I want to create intimacy deliberately. I want the opportunity to know a man through his mind before I am distracted by the convenience of his physical presence. I want to understand how he communicates when there is no immediate gratification holding us together. I want to see how he thinks, how he handles uncertainty, how he responds to disappointment, how he resolves conflict, how he treats my ambitions, and how naturally he speaks about the future. I want to understand whether his idea of partnership actually resembles mine before we begin merging our physical lives.

There is something about distance that can force two people to become intentional. When someone cannot simply appear at your door, take you out for dinner, or fill an evening because they happen to be nearby, the relationship has to develop through communication, consistency, imagination, and genuine desire. The person has to choose to call. They have to choose to make plans. They have to choose to travel. They have to choose to keep learning about you. I find something valuable in that process because I have reached a point in my life where I no longer want a relationship to emerge simply because two people happened to be geographically convenient for one another.

I want to build the emotional relationship first and then allow the physical relationship to follow naturally. I want the distance to become a space where two people can discover one another without immediately becoming consumed by logistics, routine, sex, or the comfort of simply having someone available. From there, if the relationship proves itself, I would want to move toward physical proximity with intention, eventually creating a shared life through legal commitment and marriage. I am not interested in dating indefinitely with no destination. I want the freedom to discover someone, but I also want the maturity to recognize when discovery needs to become a decision.

Perhaps this is where I have become much more specific about what I want. I sometimes think about it in the simplest possible way: if I walk into a restaurant hungry and order a rare steak, I do not want the waiter to bring me a well-done steak and then tell me that I should be grateful because it is still steak. I ordered what I wanted because I had already thought about how I wanted the experience to feel. If the kitchen gets the order wrong, I am not going to pretend I am satisfied simply to avoid being perceived as difficult. I will send it back. I will remain displeased until the order is corrected. That does not necessarily make me controlling. It means I know what I ordered.

I think relationships can be approached in a similar way. I am becoming increasingly aware that I want something specific because I have spent enough of my life observing what does and does not work for me. I am intentional about the atmosphere I want to live in, the way I want my home to feel, the way I want to dress, the way I care for my body, the way I want my career to develop, the way I want to travel, and the way I want my relationships to function. I do not see why romance should be the one area of my life where I am expected to abandon all discernment and simply accept whatever arrives at the table.

Perhaps I am asking a question that I have not asked deeply enough before: do men become this intentional about relationships? I genuinely do not know. Perhaps some do, and perhaps I have simply encountered men who were not wired that way. It seems to me that many people reach a certain age, look around at who is available, and choose the person who is nearby, compatible enough, attractive enough, and willing enough to begin building a life. There is nothing inherently wrong with that. Many beautiful marriages have begun through ordinary proximity and grown into extraordinary partnerships.

But I have never been particularly good at wanting something merely because it is available.

I want to understand what I am choosing.

I want to know why I am choosing it.

And I want the person choosing me to understand why he is choosing me, too.

I have experienced what happens when two people do not share the same perspective on that process. My previous experience showed me that distance alone does not create a relationship. Two people have to understand what the distance is for. They have to share a vision for where it is going. Otherwise, one person is building a future while the other is simply enjoying the present. One person is thinking about how two lives might eventually merge, while the other is still trying to decide whether the relationship is even real.

That difference in perspective can create an enormous amount of confusion and emotional exhaustion. It can make one person feel as though they are constantly waiting for the other person to arrive at a conclusion they reached long ago. I do not want to repeat that experience. I do not want to spend years explaining why I have certain expectations, defending the lifestyle I have created, or convincing someone that the things I value are legitimate. I want to meet someone who understands the architecture of my life early enough that we can actually build together.

This is part of why I find myself imagining a relationship with someone from a place like Miami. Perhaps a man who grew up with a similar relationship to climate, water, travel, and the wider world. Someone who understands that being close to the ocean is not simply a vacation fantasy for me; it is part of the environment in which I was raised and the lifestyle I naturally gravitate toward. Someone who understands boats, travel, warm weather, beautiful homes, and the expectation that life can extend beyond one small geographic location. Someone who can appreciate island life without being limited by it.

Perhaps with someone like that, the distance between us could feel more like a bridge than a barrier. We could begin by getting to know one another across geography, allowing the relationship to develop through conversation, travel, and intentional visits. We could learn one another's rhythms before trying to combine our lives. Then, if we discovered that our values, attraction, ambitions, and lifestyles genuinely fit, the physical distance could gradually disappear.

I recognize that this is still an experiment. I cannot know whether a Miami-born man would necessarily understand me better simply because of where he comes from. Geography does not guarantee emotional intelligence, compatibility, character, or commitment. A person can live ten minutes away and still be emotionally unreachable. Another person can live thousands of miles away and become one of the most present people in your life. But I do believe that shared cultural references and similar lifestyle expectations can reduce certain forms of friction. When two people already understand some of the same rhythms of life, there may be fewer things that need to be translated.

I also want to be much more conscious of physical compatibility this time. I have learned that it is not enough for a person to be emotionally interested in me if, somewhere down the road, he discovers that my physical stature, proportions, or overall appearance are not actually what he is attracted to. I do not want either person to discover that incompatibility after years of emotional investment. I want mutual attraction to be honest from the beginning.

I know my own physique. I know my stature. I know the way I carry myself. I know the lifestyle I live and the way I want to continue living. I have spent years becoming more intentional about my beauty, health, fashion, and physical presentation. I do not want to apologize for that, nor do I want to be with someone who quietly resents the very things that make me feel most like myself. I want a man who genuinely understands and appreciates those things rather than someone who initially accepts them and later tries to negotiate me into becoming someone else.

The next relationship I build, I want the man to understand the woman he is choosing. Not the woman he imagines I might become. Not the woman he hopes I will become. Not the woman he thinks he can eventually persuade me to become. Me.

I want him to understand my height, my physique, my femininity, my ambition, my investment in beauty and health, my love of fashion, my desire to travel, my professional goals, my creative work, my family, and the lifestyle I have been building. I want him to see the entire picture and feel genuine attraction and admiration for it. I do not want to be loved in fragments, where someone accepts the parts that are convenient and questions the parts that require them to expand.

At the same time, I want to understand him with the same clarity. I want to know what kind of man he is when life is ordinary. I want to know how he treats people who cannot offer him anything. I want to know whether he manages money responsibly, whether he has built a life he respects, whether he is emotionally available, whether he knows how to communicate, whether he can handle a strong woman without becoming threatened by her, and whether he has the capacity to create a stable partnership.

I want to know whether he is a man I can admire.

That word has become increasingly important to me.

I do not want a relationship based solely on chemistry. Chemistry can be intoxicating and still lead nowhere. I want attraction with admiration, affection with respect, romance with practical compatibility, and desire with genuine trust. I want to look at the man beside me and feel that I chose him because I recognize something substantial in him, not simply because he was available when I was lonely.

Perhaps this is also why I have become more reflective about the men I chose in the past. There were times when I treated male companionship as something closer to a convenience than a life decision. A person could be attractive, entertaining, available, useful, or fun to talk to, and that could be enough for a particular season. I was not necessarily asking myself whether this was a man I would want to build a life with. I was asking whether I enjoyed having him around.

There is a difference.

Sometimes a person enters your life because they are meant to be your partner. Sometimes they enter because they are meant to teach you something. Sometimes they are simply there because you were bored, curious, lonely, attracted, or interested in having someone to call. I do not think every person we date has to be evaluated as a potential spouse. But I do think that if marriage is eventually what we want, there comes a point when we have to stop confusing companionship with compatibility.

I am trying to become more discerning about that distinction.

I have already learned that two people can want each other and still want completely different lives. They can enjoy each other's company and still be fundamentally mismatched. They can have attraction and still lack admiration. They can communicate every day and still fail to communicate about the things that matter most.

The next time, I want to know the difference early.

I want to build something that begins with emotional intimacy and eventually earns physical intimacy. I want to experience the excitement of anticipation without confusing anticipation for commitment. I want to allow romance to grow while simultaneously paying attention to reality. I want to know that the person I am falling in love with is someone who can actually stand beside me in the life I am creating.

I want to be intentional without becoming rigid. There is an important distinction between knowing what you want and believing you can control every detail of how love arrives. I cannot order a husband from a menu. I cannot specify every characteristic and guarantee that the universe will deliver exactly what I requested. People are not steaks, and relationships are not restaurant orders. A person has a mind, a history, preferences, fears, imperfections, and their own vision for their life.

But I can know the difference between what I genuinely desire and what I am willing to compromise.

That is where my discernment needs to live.

I can say, "This is what I want," without saying, "This person must become this for me."

I can say, "This is the lifestyle I want," without demanding that someone abandon himself to provide it.

I can say, "I want a man I admire," while understanding that he also deserves to be with a woman he admires.

I can say, "I want marriage," while recognizing that marriage requires two people to choose one another freely.

I can be intentional about my order without forgetting that there is another human being sitting across the table.

That is the deeper lesson I want to carry forward.

I do not want to repeat the past by choosing someone simply because they are convenient. I also do not want to make the opposite mistake of becoming so attached to an imagined ideal that I fail to recognize a wonderful man who arrives in a form I did not predict. My standards should help me identify compatibility, not prevent me from seeing it.

Perhaps the next man will not be from Miami. Perhaps he will be. I cannot know that yet. But I do know that I want to enter the next relationship with a much clearer understanding of what I am actually trying to build.

I want a relationship that can begin with distance without becoming emotionally distant. I want communication that feels natural rather than forced. I want a man who understands my lifestyle rather than constantly questioning why I want it. I want someone who is comfortable with my stature, my appearance, and my femininity from the beginning. I want someone who understands that my beauty and health investments are not temporary phases but part of how I care for myself. I want someone who understands that travel is not an escape from my life but part of the life I want. I want someone who can appreciate the island without believing that the island is the entire world. I want someone who can imagine building a life that has both roots and wings.

And perhaps most importantly, I want someone who understands that when I talk about marriage, I am not talking about a fantasy ending to a romantic story. I am talking about the intentional merging of two lives that have already demonstrated their ability to communicate, adapt, build, and respect one another.

I want to meet someone in a way that allows me to be seen at the level of life I have actually built. Perhaps that means meeting while travelling with my family. Perhaps it means meeting someone who already understands the kind of environment from which I come. Perhaps it means beginning somewhere outside my ordinary routine, where I am not being approached through the lens of who I used to be, but encountered as the woman I am now.

There is something meaningful to me about that possibility. I have spent years becoming financially independent, developing my career, building my creative work, cultivating my appearance, investing in my health, and creating a life that is increasingly my own. I do not want to enter my next relationship as though all of that development is irrelevant. I want the man I meet next to recognize the woman standing in front of him, not simply the woman he thinks he can access.

I also want to be careful not to make my standards into a hierarchy that diminishes other people. I have learned that I want a particular kind of life, but I do not need to believe that everyone who wants something different is lesser. My standards are about compatibility, not superiority. I want a man who fits my world, but I also want to fit his. I want a relationship where neither person has to feel small in order for the other to feel important.

That might be the greatest difference between my past and my future.

I am no longer looking for someone to fill an empty seat.

I am looking for someone who can sit beside me at the table I have spent years building and genuinely feel a sense of pride, gratitude and fulfillment.

And I want to be equally capable of sitting at his with similar feelings.

That is the relationship I want to create. Not one built from convenience, boredom, or physical attraction alone, and not one built from the fear of being alone. I want something built slowly enough that both people can see what they are choosing, clearly enough that neither person feels deceived, and intentionally enough that when the distance finally closes, the relationship feels like a continuation of what was already being built rather than the beginning of an entirely different reality.

I have already learned that two people can want each other and still want completely different lives. The next time, I want to know the difference early. I want to choose someone who does not need to be convinced that my world is worth entering, just as I do not want to enter his world with the expectation that he must abandon it to accommodate me.

I want a man who sees the woman I am, understands the life I have built, recognizes the life I am moving toward, and says, with clarity rather than hesitation, that he wants to build alongside me. I want to be able to say the same about him.

Perhaps that is the real meaning of being intentional about love. It is not about controlling every detail. It is about refusing to be unconscious about what you are choosing.

I have spent enough time ordering the wrong things simply because they were placed in front of me.

The next time I sit at the table, I want to know what I came hungry for.

I want to know what I ordered.

I want to know why I ordered it.

And I want to be willing to recognize, with equal honesty, whether the person sitting across from me came to the table wanting the same meal experience.

That is the kind of distance I am willing to cross. I would want him to feel like he would cross any distance to show up for me and we can work together to afford anything we wish for including long distance if that is the case but also in having an end plan for closing the distance that we both feel great about.