Should you fix yourself before dating?

Had lunch with my lesbian friend “L” yesterday, when we talked about her girlfriend troubles.  She had recently met and fallen in love with a girl in her late twenties, who, according to third-party accounts (I have yet to meet her), turned out to be somewhat hard to handle.  Among other things, she wouldn’t let L go out with her friends, apparently causing her social life to take a dip. Yet they are clearly deeply in love and seem very happy together.

This got me thinking…do we have a duty to become reasonably sane, well-adjusted beings with a minimum of dysfunction before we release ourselves into the dating pool? By bringing unnecessary baggage into a relationship, are we sabotaging our chance at happiness? Or, as they say, love conquers all, so true love means accepting a person for who they are, warts and all? 

Perhaps it’s impossible to judge when, if ever, you are ready, so you might as well dive in and trust that love, and life, will take care of things.

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