On Flaws

The beginning of my dating profile lists, in a surely very amusing way, what I consider to be a few of my flaws. Like the fact that I'm just obnoxiously fucking loud, no matter how quiet I try to be. Or the fact that I have never watched a few of the comedic television staples for the male gender --- Seinfeld, The Simpsons, or South Park. Or the fact that I am lazy. And spacey. Surface flaws.

A few days ago I got a message on OKC that I didn't have a chance to look at for at least a day. By the time I went to view it, the sender had deactivated their profile. The message was simply:

"Flaws are merely unrecognized perfection."

First of all, aww. Second of all, if this is the case, I am splendidly, gloriously perfect. Because I am simply riddled with flaws, stitched together with good intentions, to loosely quote Augusten Burroughs. The silly list in my profile is just the tip of the iceberg, I am miles from perfect, oceans away, big fat cliche metaphors, et cetera. Maybe I take a rather harsh view of myself but honestly, there are things I would fix, if only I could, to be the perfect version of me, and perfect for someone else.

I struggled a lot over the past few years with a few of these flaws, things I cannot change or help, things that weren't my fault and it's not fair and blahblahblah. Things that keep me from having the freedom I'd like to have. Things that make me keep people at arm's length. It's taken awhile to get to the point where I can accept myself for all my broken pieces, and maybe mystery online dater man is right --- maybe those pieces truly fit together perfectly.

"The way to love someone is to lightly run your finger over that person's soul 

until you find a crack, and then gently pour your love into that crack." - Keith Miller