Halla: I loved that response too!
Entropie: I've heard similar things, more like the older you get the more 'set in your ways' you get, and hence if you're a very complex person the harder it is to find the willingness to compromise or take time out to understand someone who might be quite different. Less patience to find middle ground or communicate.
I'm not trying to piss on anyone, but I've heard this mainly from people I find to be very embittered. Not saying they have no reason to be embittered, but they've given up on trying for better things.
I'm going through a divorce (been almost a year since he left) and I've had periods where I panic like the dickens and get scared that I won't be able to find anyone with whom I can relate, grow, change, and work on a relationship with. I'll have moments where I just start listing all these things that make me complex, all the things that make me an exception to so many standards out there and I think "This shit is impossible, that marriage was my only chance and now it's gone!".
Thing is, my optimism and determination can't be killed. I could very well become set in my ways and harder to deal with, but I feel it's truly my choice. I've made the choice to remain an open person, a willing person, a giving person as well as finding ways to give and care for another while still asserting my own needs and wants. I believe it's possible, as long as I keep learning about myself and what I really want, and leaving room for those inevitable false-starts, disappointments, or future pains I might experience. Like I WANT to remain pliable and changeable rather than letting fear or bitterness set me into a rock. In a way I am so glad I got my heart broken. That sounds so masochistic but what I mean is that now that it has happened and hurt so bad, now that a relationship/living together has failed so badly and I'm surviving it, I'm not so terrified of it.
I was way more terrified of a relationship, commitment, and sharing myself/my space with another back then when I got into that relationship with my ex than I am now. I'm learning tools with which I can navigate a future relationship better. I do get scared that I am too complex, but then I just think that I've got the brains and heart to manage a real connection with someone. For me I just think I'm realizing I'm the master of my own destiny in a lot of ways. That I can have another relationship that is good, most likely better, if I stop being afraid of myself.
Like, rather than thinking "I'm so damn complex, how will I ever connect with anyone and how will I find one who can accept that?", I keep thinking "I'm so damn complex!! I love complex people so there's bound to be plenty of others who feel the same way!!". Stuff like that.
Damn, I'm rambling. Not sure if I've just said anything remotely useful, but I hope so!!