I think that, in some cases, one of the most ethical, selfless things you can do in a relationship is end it. And I think one of those cases is when you realize that, by staying with your significant other, you'd be settling for them.
That's a little bit counterintuitive. In general, it seems like the conventional wisdom is that settling in relationships, far from being enough of a reason to break up, is a given. The line of reasoning is usually couched with declarations of how hard it is to find someone you just even sort of like, and if you can find a person who makes your life even the tiniest bit happier, you should consider yourself lucky. Admonishments of being grateful for what you have rather than pouting over what you don't usually follow.
But this isn't an issue of gratitude or pouting. It's an issue of selflessness.
There is, after all, a certain level of presumptuousness about wanting to be in a relationship with someone who's looking for somebody to love.
Any relationship that's predicated on a more compelling reason than "I want to hit that" always begins with a request - perhaps implicit - for someone to put their own search for a person to love on hold because you think you might be that person.
There's a pretty sizable opportunity cost involved with accepting that request - in the form of both not being available to other potential significant others and not being able to use the time that a relationship requires to find potential significant others. That's the automatic, obligatory sacrifice everybody makes when they agree to be in a relationship.
In these terms, it can seem pretty daunting. But this shouldn't paralyze us into inaction, but it does provide good motivation to act in good faith and not screw around with people's hearts.
And acting in good faith means not letting someone continue to make that automatic, obligatory sacrifice a moment longer than they need to.
That requires some fortitude. It's easy to end a relationship because something is wrong. It's tougher to end a relationship because something is not right. And there's no doubt that relationships you're settling for can be pleasant - it's nice to have someone whose hand you can hold, or someone to fall asleep with on a cold night, or someone to whom you can come home, even if you don't think they're the one with whom you're meant to be. And hell, sometimes it's just nice for your relationship status to say something other than "single."
But nobody wants to be an interchangeable cog or a romantic placeholder. As shitty a feeling as it is to be aware that you're settling for someone, it doesn't compare to how awful it is to know you're being settled for. And it's wrong to place somebody in that position, just as it's wrong to mentally add "relatively speaking" at the end of an "I love you" to them.
To be clear, this is by no means a call to be unadventurous with your love life - sometimes meeting the one you love means taking a chance and dating someone you wouldn't normally think is your type, and sometimes it means fighting to fix a broken relationship.
And we are not under any obligation to think that every person in the world is beautiful and special, or whatever other cliché Tenderheart Bear tried to drive into our heads after kicking Professor Coldheart's ass.
But we do have a responsibility to try to treat people as though there's someone who does think that about them, even if we don't - and to remember that every moment you spend with someone you can't genuinely appreciate is a moment they could be spending with someone who can.
Joe Dellosa is an advertising senior. His column appears on Tuesdays.
