...I've been one. I've known a few. I loved them, but they were draining, self centered friends...we're all supposed to either admire their generous perfection, or listen to them endlessly grieve over everything in their life that isn't so perfect, you see.
If you deign to diagnose their perfectionist tendencies and administer the grace-antidote, you must then listen to them lie and tell you that everything is "perfect...wonderful...couldn't be better." Meanwhile, they are intrinsically discontent, almost unable to function.
"When people insist on perfection or nothing, they get nothing."
(~Edith Schaeffer, from her book "What Is a Family?")
Nothing. A perfectionist is left with nothing. Every time he or she gets an opportunity for true, warm relationship, every time a place is made for them in the heart of another, they find fault and find a reason to wander away. Serial wanderers, these. Sad. Because they insist on their own opinion (their opinion being their "version" of perfection) they isolate themselves. Perfectionists are self-aware and thus never truly comfortable for long, and they always end up like a bird out of nest.
Like a bird that wanders from its nest is a man who wanders from his place. Pr. 27:8
There are no flawless lovers, friends, parents or children, soups or sandwiches, no flawless homes or gardens, jobs or vacations, experiences or churches. Stop hoping for your version of perfection...or your wandering will never cease.
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