A Supplemental Essay Based in The 9 Agreements
Related Agreements: Agreement 8: Face Into the Wind
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"It's not so hard choosing one, as it is not choosing the rest."
― Nile Elwardoni
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You know this person.
Maybe you are this person.
They are charming, fun, usually good-looking, almost always the life of the party. They cannot wait to get to the next event. They light up when a new prospect walks through the door. They have an almost supernatural gift for making you feel, in the first thirty minutes of knowing them, like you are the most interesting person alive.
And then the next party happens.
Jay Osmond — yes, one of those Osmonds — gave this condition its name: Optionitis. And it's the perfect word, because it captures exactly what it is: not a personality type, not a lifestyle choice, but almost kind of an illness. A specific, recognizable, addiction to the pursuit of options in and of themselves.
Not love. Not connection. Not even commitment, necessarily.
Options.
"So many people, so little time."
The person with Optionitis is the honeybee of the dating world. Flower to flower, party to party, app to app — gathering just enough pollen from each encounter to feel alive, validated, desirable. Each new person delivers the hit: I am loveable. I am attractive. I still have it.
And then it wears off. So they need another hit. And another.
Here's what makes Optionitis tricky to diagnose — including in yourself: unlike someone who settles for the wrong person, the person with Optionitis isn't accidentally ending up somewhere they don't want to be. They are going exactly for what they want. Which is all of it. Every option. Every possibility. Every new face that might, just might, be the one — if only they stayed around long enough to find out.
They won't.
And before we go any further — this isn't about having too many choices. Plenty of people navigate a crowded dating world and still manage to choose. Optionitis is something more specific: it's what happens when the options become the point.