Relationships

These Traits Will Make You Successful In Business But Fail At Love

by Zara Barrie

You are a thriving force of NATURE in the workplace. You intimidate the masses with your utterly ambitious prowess.

You're quick as f*ck. You're as sharp as a f*cking razor blade. You draw blood with the cut of your words.

So, my dear ambitious entity, why do you struggle so vehemently when it comes to love?

Why are the most wildly successful people in business the most unsuccessful when it comes to matters of the heart? This thought has been lingering in the crux of my brain for quite some time.

I'm magnetically drawn to ambitious people who excel at work. Some people find themselves turned on by the perfect body, or impossibly light eyes or golden skin; I'm turned on by drive and work ethic.

Talk to me about coding or tell me a ruthless story about how you fired someone for being incompetent and my clothes are already on the floor.

I find savvy business skills to be the sexiest trait in the great, teeming sea of traits. I'm an ambitious, focused girl myself, but I'm not exactly a business woman.

I'm madly creative. I'm hyper-sensitive. I don't wear suits and somehow have managed to make a career out of spilling my guts onto paper.

They say opposites attract right? Are you cold, focused, smart (in an unemotional, analytical way), buttoned-up, calculated and organized to a point compulsion? Well hello, there. I'm Zara. Let's go on a date.

Let's drink cold champagne, and you can tell me about things I don't understand. If you can properly explain to me what exactly a hedge fund is (a feat no one has ever managed to accomplish), I might even f*ck you on the first date.

Some girls have a taste for rock stars; I have a weakness for immaculately organized grownups who wear shiny leather shoes to work and invest their money wisely.

I'm not one of those "I want to save you" girls who are fueled with desire to rescue and tame a loose cannon.

I prefer a real adult who knows how to crunch numbers and is passionate about software. I'm getting irrepressibly hot and bothered just thinking about it.

One would think a person who is so wildly "together" at work wouldn't have a semblance of a problem whilst doing something as seemingly simple as dating, but my experience lends itself to opposite results.

In my decade-long dating experience, I've come to realize some of the most successful people at work are the most unsuccessful in love.

The traits and qualities that make you soar in the office make you fall to the ground and taste the pavement relationship.

Here are some of my thoughts as to why:

You turn people into projects.

You love nothing more than to swan dive into a challenging project (which is probably why you're attracted to the hot mess that is me).

You seek out a troubled soul, a train wreck of a person who is riddled with complicated problems and deep-rooted issues, and all you want to do is turn this person into a thriving adult with his or her sh*t gloriously together.

The trouble is people aren't projects; they’re f*cking people. They are multifaceted and dynamic. Flesh is neither black nor white -- it's a plethora of hard-to-define, subjective shades attaining rich undertones.

People are not the crossword puzzles you like to dutifully solve on a Sunday morning whilst clad in your expensive terry-cloth bathrobe.

You expect a "return on investment."

You're so used to everything being cut and dry, not muddled and messy (which love perpetually is). You feel like if you invest heaps of time into "X," you should surely get "X" return on your investment back.

Oh, if only love worked in such a silky smooth fashion.

People don't work like investments. Sometimes people come with issues, traumas and complexities they still have to work through.

Things that only time will heal. Things that may never heal, despite your endless efforts in bandaging the painful wounds.

You can't push or force the speed of a relationship onto someone. Just because you have worked hard doesn't mean this person’s emotional timeline will match up to yours.

Just because you orchestrated a perfect evening out on the vivacious town does not mean your partner is obligated to come home with you.

Let your partner breathe. Surrender your tight fist of control and trust that everything will work out the way it should.

You can't handle it when your routine is disrupted.

Highly successful entities are often highly organized. You have a strict schedule that you religiously stick to: gym with a trainer at 5:45 am, back from the gym by 7:20 am, en route to the office by 8:19 am. You thrive when shackled to a strict routine.

The advent of a girlfriend suddenly manifested into your life disrupts your routine.

There is now a human being tossed into your perfect, calculated mix, with impulses and desires that aren't always cohesive to yours.

You find yourself irrationally irritated by the fact that she's got an irrepressible craving for Mexican food on a Wednesday night.

You don't eat Mexican food on Wednesday nights. It's not on the schedule, damn it.

You have a massive ego.

Successful spirits come with sweeping egos. You're used to being number f*cking one. You're used to getting YOUR way.

So what happens when a crazy girl with her own sizable ego is added to the equation? It's the great battle of the egos, a battle you're not used to fighting.

Your employees cower to you, but a girlfriend isn't on your payroll. She won't let you win without a fight.

Interestingly enough, successful people go for partners with egos too. You're smart, and as much as you probably wished you only were attracted to pretty "arm candy," you're instead drawn to dynamic people. This drives you crazy as much as it turns you on.

Suddenly you're forced to think of someone outside the realm of yourself, and it's infuriating and sexy all at once.

You don't take NO for an answer.

What made you so successful? The fact that NO is a non-existent word in your finely tuned, well-educated vocabulary. When someone says "NO" to you, you hear "I f*cking dare you."

A glorious, admirable trait in the workforce but painful in relationships. Sometimes you have to accept a solid “no.”

Sometimes you have to resign and admit to weakness or to being wrong. This type of vulnerability is unsafe and uncomfortable for you.

You prefer success to happiness.

The sweet taste of success is a powerful pill you're addicted to. You will do whatever it takes to attain the most amount of success possible.

You channel endless hours into your work even if it means you end up drained and fatigued.

This often translates into your relationships. You don't know when to walk away. You think you have FAILED at love if a relationship comes to end.

When it comes to love, you should always choose your unabashed, authentic happiness over "success." Love takes on a life of its own. It's not something you can control and micromanage and organize into perfection.

It's sort of messy. But it's a beautiful mess.

Take a risk. The disaster, the heartbreak, the trials and tribulations -- it's always worth it. Because no project in the world will ever fulfill you like the messy, flawed, wonderful taste of true love.

Let it happen.