It’s funny, but something like this just came up in conversation this morning.
I was talking to a young woman who has been dating some young men after breaking up with her boyfriend of a few years in mid-summer. She mentioned that after a number of dates with different young men, she had found “the one”. (And this young woman has a lot on the ball; she’s bright and determined and has a – well-earned and totally apropos – healthy-good opinion of herself. So when she says she has found “the one”, I figure that this guy has something on the ball, himself.)
But … there’s a problem. SHE was his first date after a breakup of his own five-and-a-half-year serious relationship. So, though she was totally smitten with him, he told her that he’s “not ready for a relationship now”, and backed off. (But he did say nice things to her, and that he “hopes their paths cross again” in the future.) So, she’s not writing him off, but she’s not going to sit by the phone and pine over him, either. My suggestion to her was to wait a month or so and then send him a mock-angry letter (on paper) detailing the way he has “ruined her life” because she can’t find anyone with his sterling qualities. She felt a lot better having that as a plan. But I digress. I almost always do that. Quite often, the digressions are way better than anything I have to say in response to the question, so you should enjoy it while you get the chance.
Her comment to me after all that (and this is where we get back to your question; see, I nearly always come back to the point, too) was, “The first figure skater never gets a 10.” I thought that was a great observation. On the other hand, I have no idea what the last figure skater gets.