We also want the complete package when it comes to relationships:

The partner who really shares ALL of our interests, fulfills ALL of our wishes in bed (even if we don't tell them what we want) and, if possible, with lifelong feelings of infatuation.

If the other person doesn't fulfill these criteria, we might survive the infatuation phase. But after that, at the latest, we are confronted with reality. And then we start to doubt love. This is not how we imagined it. After all, perfection is what we have in mind. But does that even exist in a relationship?

Who are our relationship role models?

A single person is supposed to be responsible for all our needs. Who implanted this idea in us? This idea has to come from somewhere. We all learn from role models. But who have we been watching? Who did we learn from?

Was it perhaps our grandparents?

Some of them actually live or lived together for a lifetime. We have known these people from our earliest childhood and can hardly imagine that there were also major ups and downs. We don't know whether they would perhaps no longer be together if there had been the possibility of separation.

I think the article by Stefanie Pichlmair, who interviewed her grandparents about their love and found out that it had never existed. Her grandparents had stayed together for a different reason: she didn't have the heart to leave him alone after an accident and he later stayed with her out of a sense of duty. But out of love? No. And do you think they had the perfect sex that we long for today? Hardly.

Is it perhaps our parents?

Do they have the perfect relationship that we imagine? I'm going to assume that not everyone answers this question in the affirmative. The younger we are, the more children of divorce we find among us and the more people live in patchwork families. Separations upon separations. But our parents are or were certainly happy once too. Nevertheless, they will hardly have modeled the perfect relationship for us, even if they are certainly hiding a lot more from us.

And what about their love life? Did they read all their erotic desires from their eyes and fulfill them? Of course not, after all, no parents ever have sex at all, neither perfect nor imperfect. Except at the time of our conception.

So here, too, no such thing. But instead of moving wisely through the world with this experience and knowledge, we stick strictly to our plan of the perfect relationship. And we end what could perhaps become love.

The great love stories of world literature

The only truly perfect relationships can be found in books and films. And this is where it really hits home. Two people deliberately set out to find Mr. or Mrs. Right, are promised to each other or run into each other purely by chance. In the supermarket, at work, at their best friend's wedding. There are usually a few hurdles in the way. After many trials and tribulations, however, these are overcome together in the course of the story before things finally spark in the grand finale. And when it finally does, the story is already over at this point. Oh, how nice!

Up to this point, we may even know one or two things from our own experience. Perhaps not quite so romantic, perhaps not quite so earth-shattering. But unfortunately, we can't watch the protagonists any further than the end of a movie or book. And so we don't see or read about the problems the two of them are confronted with later on. We don't know what will happen if one of them loses their job, if a child is added to the love affair or if the sex gets boring after all. We firmly believe that the sparks in the movie will fly forever.

Performance, the attitude to life of our time

Are a few fictional stories alone really enough to keep us searching for that perfect love, despite all our real-life experiences? A search that leaves everything that doesn't fit 100% into our imagination by the wayside?

I think there is more to it than that. We also want to constantly optimize ourselves. We shape our body, our energy, our mind, our appearance and are actually almost impossible to satisfy. We keep a close eye on ourselves and are hypercritical. And of course it's difficult to accept another person for who they are if we can't accept ourselves for who we are. We demand performance, performance, performance from ourselves and others. We constantly make demands on everything.

"One for me, but not for everything"

But that doesn't work in a relationship. Two real people with their own ideas and desires come together here. And the more pressure we put on each other, the less chance we give ourselves to perceive the other person in his or her uniqueness and specialness. We will never find that one hundred percent match. But we can consider where we allow ourselves and our partner to be independent and where we really need common ground. And then we should be able to experience that the butterflies in our stomachs will eventually settle down. So maybe we can manage it: "One for me, but not for everything."

Anja Drews - qualified sex educator for ORION