Are We Creating Unrealistic Standards or Finally Refusing to Settle?

I was talking to a friend not too long ago. One of those late-night “let me vent for a minute” conversations where you can hear the truth in someone’s voice before they even say it. She was telling me about a guy she had been seeing. Nice enough, funny, easy to talk to. But every time she needed something real—real effort, real openness, real presence—he had a reason he couldn’t give it. He wasn’t rude. He wasn’t dramatic. He just wasn’t… there.

You know the type.

She said, “Maybe I’m asking for too much,” and then she got quiet, like she wasn’t sure if she believed it herself.

And I remember thinking, How many times have we all said those same words? How many times have we talked ourselves out of our own needs because someone else didn’t want to meet them?

Later that night, it hit me: most women aren’t walking around with unrealistic standards. Most of us are walking around with years of conditioning that made us believe wanting honesty, effort, consistency, and clarity was somehow excessive.

Many of us were raised around “make it work” love. The kind where you adjust and compromise and stretch yourself thin because that’s what the women before you did. So when you start healing, when you slow down enough to hear yourself, the old way of loving no longer fits. It feels like trying to squeeze into a version of yourself you’ve outgrown.

That’s where the shift happens.

One day you wake up and realize you don’t want to guess how someone feels. You don’t want to chase clarity. You don’t want to be emotionally present while someone else shows up only when they feel like it.

You want steady. You want intentional. You want the kind of connection that doesn’t leave you confused at night.

And the moment you start choosing those things, somebody will call it having “high standards.” But it’s not that. It’s awareness. It’s finally respecting the woman you’ve become. It’s understanding the cost of abandoning yourself just to keep someone else comfortable.

You’re not the woman who romanticizes red flags anymore. You’re not the woman who turns mixed signals into a storyline. You’re not the woman who shrinks herself just to say you have someone.

What I told my friend that night, and what I’ll say to you, is this: when you outgrow the version of you that accepted breadcrumbs, the entire table changes. Your expectations shift. Your tolerance shifts. Your definition of partnership shifts.

And yes, people who benefitted from your old patterns might tell you that you’re being difficult now. But that’s their discomfort, not your responsibility.

You’re not refusing love. You’re refusing confusion. You’re not expecting perfection. You’re expecting effort. You’re not impossible. You’re intentional.

There is a difference.

So no, you’re not creating unrealistic standards. You’re refusing to settle for relationships that can’t meet the woman you are today.

And the right person won’t be intimidated by that. They’ll understand it. They’ll match it. And they’ll appreciate you for having standards in the first place.