NOBODY'S PERFECT

Billy Wilder's tombstone in Hollywood

I have often wondered what a successful relationship consists of. I can hardly claim to have had a particularly good record in this field, although I have been with my partner for nearly a quarter of a century now. We got together early in the twenty first century, which is now in 2025 a quarter over. I have a memory of going to see the new century in with my family on Dartmoor but it turned out that was one of last we things we did together.

We have certainly had our ups and downs in that time, almost splitting up at one stage and never formally tying the knot by getting married. However, we realise that we are both much happier inside a relationship than outside one and, after a while, you get tired of looking for the ‘right’ person and settle for what we have in front of us. So there is a part of any successful relationship that is settling for what you have got and stopping the search.

 

That does not sound very romantic, I would be the first to admit. When you are young you tend to believe that there is somebody meant for you and it is just a question of finding them. As you get older, however, you realise it is more a question of making choices from what is available. A lot of this comes from deciding that, in the old cliché, no-one is perfect and coming to terms with someone’s imperfections is the way to nurture a relationship..  

 

The film Some Like It Hot ends with just this thought as the Tony Curtis character admits to the man determined to woo and marry her that (s)he is really a man in disguise. (To cut a long story short, she and Jack Lemmon are trying to escape from murderous gangsters and think that the best way to do so is to dress in drag.) The film, which was made in the late 1950s, actually anticipates some of the transgender debates raging at the moment.

 

It is a frothy sort of film but. It has stood the test of time and pays rewatching today. The director Billy Wilder spoke with a foreign accent throughout his life, even when he was making films entirely in English later in his career. He was born in 1906 in Poland and moved to Hollywood to escape the Nazis, directing dark films like Double Indemnity and The Lost Weekend as well as light comedies. He was surely one of Hollywood’s great film directors.

 

The phrase ‘Nobody’s perfect’ is inscribed on Wilder’s gravestone. It is not actually the full epitaph (photograph above) and was meant to be a joke but there is a good point there. Nobody is perfect and the secret of having a long-lasting relationship is to STOP LOOKING FOR PERFECTION. There is a temptation to believe that somebody who is just right for you is out there and achieving happiness is just a matter of finding them.

 

But surely the secret of a good relationship is coming to terms with the other person in it, their imperfections and all. Both my partner and I want to be in a relationship while my ex takes the attitude that being on your own is better than being with the wrong person. It was, of course, this perfectionism that I fell for but was unable to live up to. Nobody, however, could have done that so she remains alone while I am with someone.

 

Each to his (or her) own. Yet I cannot help feeling that it is better to be with someone than otherwise. To have someone for company and conversation, for practical help and support and the feeling that you do not have to try too hard. I feel no envy towards those who are in the singles marketplace and are still out there looking for a new partner. It is, if nothing else, it is simply too much like hard work and I am happy to have left that all behind.

 

That may sound unbearably smug of me but it is genuinely the way I feel. As Saint Paul says in his letter to the Corinthians, 'When I was a child, I talked like a child. I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the way of childhood behind me.'

To be searching for a partner – or to be on your own – seems someone childish to me as I embrace my old age. Searching for someone new – too late, too late for all of that now.

My other blog is diaryofatouristguide.blogspot.com 

Edwin Lerner