The deli across the street—which the new area kids call a bodega, but as it's on the Upper East Side of Manhattan it is really neither of both—serves standard cuts and other prepared foods. Most of it, unsurprisingly, mediocre.
But the chicken salad they serve, I like. I like a lot.
Yet, as much as I like it—maybe even because of how much I like it—once I get it home, I have to then "doctor" it even more to get it exactly as I like it, or as close as possible. I add some celery salt, smoked paprika, maybe some relish, if I have it. But I can't seem to be happy enough with the chicken salad I already like immensely. I can't just "leave it be" and enjoy it as it is.
I have discovered that I've been doing the same thing with people. I'm drawn to the people with a majority of the qualities that I like in a person, yet still want them to have these few extra "touches" so that they are "just right".
Just right for whom? For me, of course. But unlike the chicken salad, I can't "doctor" people. And when I try to—and it doesn't work or happen—I get frustrated.
It's like if the chicken salad repelled whatever other seasonings I tried to add to it. I'd get mad at it and want to then throw it out.
I have, unfortunately, "thrown out" people. For not being exactly and wholly what I want them to be, though being a majority of what I like. In my efforts to insist they be perfect for me, I only proved how imperfect I myself was.
How I was the unseasoned one, at first, palatable, but eventually behaving so distastefully they could no longer stomach me as I became toxic.
And I could no longer swallow something originally appetizing prospect of a relationship, that I alone then made toxic, soon making all parties sick.
Making everything bad, because good wasn't good enough. For me.