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Last year, I was seeing this guy I called The Bartender. And I was in a place where I was looking for something serious. And pretty much from the jump, I could tell that he was not. He would take days to respond to my text messages. We would hang out, like, once every three weeks. It just — it wasn’t really going anywhere.

So finally, I was like, you know what? I’m going to end it. And I wrote him something like, you know, this has been fun, but it’s clear to me that we’re looking for different things.

And it took him around 48 to 72 hours to respond, because it always did. And he replied, I think you’re right. It’s too hard to make something work when we live on opposite sides of the world.

This guy does not live in Australia. He lives around 40 minutes away on public transportation, 45 if the trains are really crawling. So it kind of stung that was his reason we needed to end things.

But the more I thought about it, I realized I was looking for someone who was willing to make a commute, who wouldn’t see the distance between us as this, like, insurmountable problem, but as something we could work out, together. And now, I’m dating someone who lives 48 minutes away, even further. He bikes. I take the bus, which really means I call a Lyft, and we’re making it work.

From The New York Times, this is Modern Love. I’m Anna Martin, and today’s essay is about looking for a partner who’s willing to work things out with you. And commute time is one thing, but the story you’re about to hear goes a lot deeper, to the heart of what it really means to choose someone.

It’s called “In Praise of the 10-Percent Wrong Relationship.” It’s written by Oz Johnson and read by Samantha Desz.

When I went to business school, I quietly observed people from the periphery, which is to say, I noticed him years before he noticed me. I accepted that he and I’d never speak. And then, last spring, five years after we graduated, it happened at our class reunion.

I was shivering next to an underpowered gas fire pit when I heard his voice over my shoulder, asking if the seat next to me was taken. Suddenly, improbably, we were talking. We nodded vigorously at each other’s take on the war in Ukraine, Palestinian nationalism, institutional failure and our own failures of political action.

And then, we slipped into a conversation about our failed tries at love. He told me about his most significant relationships and how close he had come to marriage. I asked what went wrong? He couldn’t quite describe it, but as wonderful as those relationships were, something was missing.

I do not have a track record of helping men locate missing feelings. When I was 23, my boyfriend of four years broke up with me in a mosquito-infested Washington, D.C., backyard. His verdict — I was 99 percent what he was looking for in a wife, but still missing 1 percent of perfection.

On the drive home, I forgot to turn on my headlights. A cop pulled me over and found me sobbing behind the wheel, mumbling about heartbreak. He told me I was young and pretty and would get another man and be OK — as long as I remembered road safety.

Over the next decade, I met one man, just one, I could envision marrying. For seven months, we were suspiciously close friends. Then we finally slept together.

The next day, he seemed distant. Two weeks later, it was over. He didn’t feel enough for me, he said. Something was missing.

So when my classmate told me that his previous relationships had fallen apart all because he felt like something unquantifiable was missing, it hit me as just too familiar. Maybe it was significant that we’d been talking for three solid hours. I wondered, maybe this is what it’s like when a missing feeling is unexpectedly found.

We lost track of each other at a crowded afterparty. But a few days later, he sent me a video of himself playing Ludovico Einaudi’s “Nuvole Bianche” on the piano, followed by an invitation to New York for a live performance. I bought a plane ticket.

In the weeks before my trip, we texted daily. He shared his links to his favorite writing about New York and pictures from his brother’s wedding. I nervously sent him the draft of a 20-page essay I had written about my conversion to Judaism.

A week later, a copy of my essay, full of thoughtful, handwritten comments, landed in my inbox. I gave myself permission to love him. We met at his Brooklyn apartment on a Saturday morning and walked across the city, talking with the same urgency as that first night.

The conversations convinced me of our compatibility. We both wanted lives of travel, with adventurous children underfoot. And then, the sexual tension crept in. We tried to drag it out. But it built until we had no choice but to go back to his place.

The next day, lying in bed with our legs entangled, he said that he felt anxious. After a first date as perfect as ours, he expected to feel elated, but instead, he had an inexplicable hesitation. He needed time to think.

The rejection came a week later via tenderly-written email. He wrote: Our relationship felt 90 percent right, right enough that we could fall in love, but wrong enough that it would never last. We should end it before the inevitable split got more difficult. It’s not that there were any glaring problems, but something was missing.

I read the email in bed, thankful that there was no cop to see me crying. When my tears dried, I sank into my pillow, closed my eyes, and was overcome with the conviction that this whole missing-feeling thing was a scam. Men had used it with me too many times as a reason to break up or, at best, a polite excuse — a blameless way to end a relationship.

The only three men I had ever imagined a future with all told me that something was missing. I had let their words haunt me for years. I have come to admire their audacious belief in a more perfect love.

They deserve to find partners who are 100 percent right. But that isn’t the kind of love I want for myself.

I believe that life feels wrong most of the time, and it’s enough to find someone who will help you find humor in the wrongness, someone who will bear witness to your loneliness, rather than relieve you of it entirely.

I believe that the most passionate love is experienced by two people who embrace the imperfection of their relationship, who see it as a fixer-upper with good bones. I believe that when you are with a wonderful person, but something is missing, you take your partner’s hand and search for it together.

Oz has embraced the search for a partner who isn’t perfect but is perfect for her. And after the break — a story from a woman who found that kind of love. She found a life partner and a dance partner. That’s next.

Nancy Cardwell has two great loves in her life. The first is her husband, Luis, and the second is the tango.

Her two love stories are intertwined. If it wasn’t for dancing, Nancy would never have met Luis.

She wasn’t even looking for a relationship. At age 58, Nancy had never been married, and that was just fine with her. Her life was full.

I had never been happier than I was the day before I met Luis.

I had spent my life as an adult being a happy, single woman, and then I took up tango dancing, and my whole life changed. My whole focus just shrunk down to the dance. And so I wasn’t looking for anything, and I was very happy.

Nancy, when did you first encounter tango?

I had friends who had been tango dancers for years. They would invite me to come to their house to tango parties, and I never went. I certainly did not want to go out someplace where everybody’s in couples and you’re alone.

And then, one day, in February 2005, my friend Jim called me up, and he says, well, I need you to do me a favor. There is a restaurant about a mile from your house where they have a tango band, and we’re worried that not enough people are coming. And you don’t have to dance. I know you’re not interested in dancing. But please, we need you.

OK, so you agree to go to this tango night — very begrudgingly, it sounds like, because you had all these assumptions about people wrapped up in each other’s arms. But when you walk in, were you right?

Yeah.

Through the course of the evening, people would get up and dance with each other at the table. Then they would say to me, would you like to dance?

I kept saying, no, until finally, toward the very end of the evening, one of the guys leaned over to me at the table, and he said to me, look, if you would just get up and come out on the dance floor with me, I will whisper in your ear what to do.

And I thought, well, I’m 58 years old. Do I really care what the world thinks about me? Not particularly. So I got up and went out on the dance floor.

But we came back to the table. And all the other people said to me, the band is here again in a month. You should come back.

So the month went by, and I did go back.

Why did you go back? You’d been so, kind of, resistant.

I just loved doing it, and every opportunity to do it was more fun than the last time. It was a creep. It was that you looked around, and all of a sudden, you were taking five classes a week.

That’s a lot of classes.

Yeah, no, it was just — you couldn’t get enough of it. But it was a passion. It wasn’t an obsession.

Those first few weeks and months, can you tell me what your body felt like when you were dancing?

The thing that really grabs you — I’m not a surfer, but I’ve been a body surfer when I was a kid. And you always want the perfect wave, the perfect thing. And there are moments of such absolute union and bliss, while you’re dancing.

The two of you together — you are one being, four legs, just totally together. And that is such a wonderful feeling, that you want it again and again. So you keep going back, looking for it and you don’t always find it. In fact, it is rare to get it totally. But you’re always thinking, this is going to be the dance.

This is going to be the dance.

Yeah. I used to look at men and judge them on all kinds of things, from height to age, to social standing. And in tango, my focus narrowed. I began to judge people only by whether I would like to dance with them for the next 12 minutes.

A 58-year-old woman doesn’t normally look at the 25-year-old guys. I now was making friends with 25-year-old guys, because they wanted to dance, and I wanted to dance.

So it freed you, in some way.

Exactly.

Does that resonate?

Yeah. It changes what’s important to you.

So you’re dancing more and more. You can feel yourself getting better. And you want to take it to the next level. So you go to the tango capital of the world, Buenos Aires, and you start going to these dances across the city, which is where you meet Luis. Tell me about the first time you saw him.

I was out at a milonga, which is what a tango dance is called. And a milonga is set up normally kind of like an eighth-grade mixer. Most of the men are sitting on one side, and most of the women are sitting on the other side. And the men invite the women to dance with a slight nod of the head. It’s called a cabeceo.

And so I’m sitting there, watching, and I notice Luis dancing by with this other woman. And I’m thinking about leaving. It’s toward the end of the dance. And I look up, and he’s approaching my table.

Hmm.

So I got up, and I danced with him. He was a lovely dancer, and I was glad to be dancing with him. But in my mind, it was nothing special.

So the next week, I go back. And as soon as I get there, he pops up and asks me to dance. I mean, he nods at me. And I say, yes, because now, I know him. And so I dance with him, and I dance miserably.

So then, somebody else asks me to dance, and I dance even worse. And maybe I dance with one other guy, and I realize I just feel rotten. I’m just sick. So I’m going home, because this is no fun. And so I tried to say to him, look, you’re not going to be stuck with me all afternoon, because I’m going home. And he’s like, oh, no, no, no, don’t leave. Don’t leave. You can’t leave.

How are you reacting to this? This guy clearly, really wants you to stay and dance with him. What did that mean to you?

Well, you see, you’re kind of responding like an American would respond.

Oh, OK.

I had been told before I went that these guys are all talk, all blah, blah, blah.

[LAUGHS]

Yet, he starts being nice to me, and I’m thinking, OK, just what you would expect.

Huh. No part of you wanted to believe it?

No, no part of me believed it at all. So finally, he says to me, I’m going to tell you a secret. It’s not you. These men, they don’t know how to dance. You’re dancing fine. [CHUCKLES]

What did that mean when he said that? How did you respond?

It was like, what a sweet thing to say. That was when I decided I really liked this guy.

Hmm. Mm-hmm.

So I left in the following week on Saturday afternoon, when I would have been out dancing. I wrote him a note from my kitchen table in Virginia and said, you know, thank you so much. My trip was much better for having met you.

I told him that I would probably be back in the fall. So then, in September, I got an email from him that says, you said you’re coming back. When are you coming back?

Wow.

Well, I came back in November, and we made an agreement to meet at the milonga where we had met. So we were up on the dance floor dancing, and he says to me, I think you are going to be one of the great loves of my life.

It just seems so outrageous.

Wow. Can I ask you, though, Nancy, when someone says something like that, which is a big thing to say to someone — when you’re wrapped up in an embrace, spinning across a dance floor — did part of you believe it?

In many senses, I hardly knew him. And as far as I knew, he was a nice guy.

Sure.

But I mean, he claims it was love at first sight.

So he says this thing to you — I think you’re one of the great loves of my life. Tell me what happens after that.

We met on Friday. And after the milonga on Friday, we left. We walked three or four blocks to one of the biggest, oldest pizzerias in downtown Buenos Aires.

So this was a date.

It was kind of like — yeah, this was a date. This was a date. You could tell this was a date. So we had a very nice time, and I lived, maybe, 10 blocks away.

And so he walked me home. And when we get home, by now, I’m thinking that this guy could be fun, but I’m thinking of him more of — I’m on vacation, wouldn’t this be fun.

So I asked him if he wanted to come upstairs. And he did. And he never left. We’ve been together ever since.

You wanted him to stay.

We did not break up.

Hmm. Is he the best dancer you’ve ever danced with?

Best dancer, or the one I enjoy dancing with most?

Hmm. You tell me.

Actually, no. He is a great dancer.

He is a wonderful dancer. But the thing is that because he is so protective of me and so involved with me, that when we dance, he holds me too tight. He worries about what’s going to happen. And he doesn’t have the freedom to dance — nor, in a sense, do I — because he’s just so concerned about me.

So you might dance with other people, but you always come back to each other.

You don’t have seven or eight hours to talk about what happens on the dance floor.

[LAUGHS]: Maybe I’ll just come and visit you in Buenos Aires. How does that sound?

You’re welcome. You’re welcome.

Nancy and Luis have been married for nine years. They split their time between Argentina and America, and they consider both places their homes. Their life together is full of dance.

“Modern Love” is produced by Julia Botero, Christina Djossa, Elyssa Dudley and Hans Buetow. It’s edited by Sara Sarasohn. Our executive producer is Jen Poyant.

This episode was mixed by Sophia Lanman. Our show is recorded by Maddy Masiello. The Modern Love theme music is by Dan Powell. Original music in this episode — by Dan Powell and Marion Lozano.

Digital production by Mahima Chablani and Nell Gallogly. Special thanks to Anna Diamond at Audm. The Modern Love column is edited by Daniel Jones. Miya Lee is the editor of Modern Love projects. I’m Anna Martin. Thanks for listening.