Now is the time in my web page when i Perplect.  

Grow me a second half:   I wonder sometimes what the best way to go about personal growth is.  Well, ok, that said, i wonder if there is any one way to insure that one will go through personal growth. ...I guess there isn't.  I used to think that if you went to university that you had to go through personal growth, because after all, i did.  And almost everyone around me at my school was going through growth.  But then i came back home again and i talked with a friend who had not only not gone through growth, he had regressed.  Or, grew in the opposite direction.  He became more of a hick, anyway, became more closed minded.  I guess if you wanted you could declare any form of change growth and that becoming more closed minded is a valid form of growth.

But i don't agree. i have an opinion here, i am going to be judgmental.  Go figure, i am sure you might be willing to believe that.  You can't have growth unless you are becoming more open minded, more easy going, more in tune with who you are and who others around you are.

But that isn't actually the drive of this discussion, not what constitutes growth.  that is a fairly evident thing to me, if you have a need for me to actually discuss that, ask, and i shall consider.  My question is rather that of wondering whether growth is better to have happen within a relationship or without.

Consider, when you get married at a young age, then you are going to do most of your growth once you are inside of a relationship.  If you don't start your relationship until you are past that area of prime growth you are going to have things happen separately.  You don't really have a choice unless you are someone who has hit 30 and has not done any personal growth yet, as i am sure that many people are.

Why is there even a difference you might ask? You might even ask if there is any difference.  And i guess the first answer that i have to give is that i don't really know for sure.   But i think that there would have to be.  You see, being in a relationship narrows the number or experiences that you might have.  It also widens the amount you might have in the relationship type way.  

 I guess i don't really have a good way of answering this question.  At this point in my life i am entering into a relationship under the realization that i have done most of the important personal growth that i am going to have to do.  You know the post teen, discovering yourself and how stupid you were growth.  Which means that for the person that i am entering into the relationship with, she is getting a person that is aware of themselves and etc.  This, i think, is a bonus and an attractive thing to have access to.  But the thing is, if i was younger and had not had this, the person would also be young and needing the same growth, would the person knowing them self be able to stomach the person who still needs to grow?  Will they be able to cope with the amount of change that they are going through without the corresponding growth from their partner. 

I guess as i read this, that i don't have a good answer.  And that every person, and indeed every relationship this person has will be different and therefore you can't pin it down.

So, which do you think is better though?  To grow with, or to find mostly grown?  Do you want to be a part of the upheaval, with the risk that you will grow in different directions?  Hard to say for me.  but a moot point, because after all, i am not 28.  That time is gone.  What would i recommend?  Simple, the same thing i always do, don't give up the chance to have a cool relationship when it comes along, the pain is always worth the joy.