Try for the guy you really want

Dear Carolyn: I am a 26-year-old, single woman ready to settle down. I have recently started dating a guy and things are going well. He’s funny, smart and I am attracted to him. I could see a future with him. Unfortunately, there is someone else whom I can’t get out of my mind. Someone I have undeniable chemistry with and who makes my stomach flip – both physically and emotionally. This guy could be the love of my life except that he lives two hours away, is applying for jobs on another coast and will be leaving soon. I’m ready for a real relationship, so I’m not going to pine after someone unattainable. But am I just setting myself up for a letdown if I continue dating Bachelor No. 1 knowing full well there is someone else out there whom I could be having something fantastic and earth-shattering with? – Stomach Flip

I wasn’t aware that budgeting, flossing and weatherproofing together had such seismic potential.

Which might be why I agree you shouldn’t be pining for your unattainable stomach-flipper.

You should be lunging for him.

Out of courtesy for the new guy you’re seeing.

I guess this is the part where I explain myself.

4. The new guy deserves a woman who won’t be looking over his shoulder every time she embraces him.

3. You’ll never be that woman as long as you believe you can do better.

2. You will always believe you can do better as long as you believe with your stomach. (Not to be confused with gut.)

1. In stomach-flippage you will trust until you realize it doesn’t stand a chance in a fight with day-to-day life – and when it dies, there’d better be more to sustain you.

Ideally, you’ll find this out by falling so gradually, durably and profoundly for the new guy that you’ll never doubt him again and forget undeniable-chemistry guy and live ideally ever after eating noncaloric hot-fudge sundaes.

Realistically, people are rarely that patient until they get burned once or thrice by The One(s).

Thus my advice, try for the guy you really want. At worst you’ll emerge charred and enlightened, and at best prove me wrong, fantastically ever after.

If it’s too late and he’s already on the wrong coast, then please don’t try for anything except patience. And decency: Do you want to be loved because you’re “attainable”? Let meeting the right guy be the reason you want to settle down, not the reverse.

The right guy being: the one you still love when the adrenaline’s gone and who silences your what-ifs. The right guy not being: the one you chose because the music stopped and he was the sturdiest chair.

Dear Carolyn: How can you tell when you’re getting the polite brush-off, when the person seems to really want to see you but keeps backing out? – NYC

When you hand the person your number and say, please call me when you want to reschedule, and that’s the last conversation you have.

This won’t prove a polite brushing-off, exactly, since it’s still possible the person won’t call back for the same reason s/he kept backing out in the first place – flaky, busy, depressed, careless with key to handcuffs – but it will give a pretty accurate reading of the urgency this person feels.