[EvilEvilKitten]

True love? OF course it exists but, once again, you have to go and find it - it does not - EVER - come to you. True love also does not hit you like lightning. It sneaks up on you from behind and when you finally see it - you realise it was always there, quietly waiting for you to catch up. True love is also found where you don't expect to find it, where you never dreamed you'd find it.
That's why it is from dating around that it comes.

'Settling for average' is what happens when you just do the one-at-a-time thing. You have spent so much time and invested so much effort in this one person that you are reluctant to let him/her go - so you end up marrying i.e. "settling". You find time and life passing you by, so you end up "settling" for what you think you can get from the person you happen to be dating at the time. This 'one-at-a-time" thing simply is not WISE.

odis - Please stop thinking that I do not know what I'm talking about. I am not just speaking from my own personal experience. I have seen it in others and have seen their relationships both good and bad. Inter-gender relationships is a fascinating study which I have been following, most comprehensively, for about 40 years now.