What Are You Really Looking For?

I’ve pointed the limited and narrow dating requirements women tend to seek in potential dates. Men tend to be more liberal, when it comes to physical characteristics, we are picky in other ways. I’ve always thought I needed a woman who loved sports as much as I do, when in actuality I needed a woman who understood my love for sports. It was the quality of the person that had given me the success I have, instead of a check list of requirements. I’m not suggesting all requirements be discarded, I’m merely saying they aren’t the primary focus.

An illustration would be a person who loves metal music. If you love Hip-Hop, it’s not a reason for you to remove them from your dating pool. Metal and Hip-Hop have produced some great artists (i.e. Linkin Park, Korn) and the two genres perform cross overs often (listen to Lil’ Wayne’s recent album or the Linkin Park/Jay-Z Mashup Album). A person who loves metal is different from them not liking music at all. A roommate of mine dated someone who hated music, he was a musician. Things didn’t work out.

When you’re searching for someone new, consider the things you would really like to do with that person. Walks on the beach? Trips the museum? Cuddling on a cold, rainy day? Watching TV together? Those things transcend beyond the ever growing checklist of requirements; the need for someone to be over 5’7” because it would be awkward; or the need for curves on a woman. Our checklists may determine how we rank people, who’s on our A, B, and C lists, but it’s not the focus of dating. eFlirtExpert Laurie Davis describes very well what happens with our dating lists as we begin to date someone (for men, read my explanation).

If you’re sticking to your guidelines, patterns emerge and when you alter the guidelines, your dating patterns may change. It may seem as a success at first, but it doesn’t guarantee the quality of your dates increase. If you started dating musicians instead of artists, that doesn’t mean you’ll stop finding assholes, it just means the assholes now play music instead of paints. While dating, I had to stop myself from meeting people at a particular bar, I wasn’t finding any quality. It didn’t mean when I went to other bars I was finding better women, honestly, I found just the same.

When I began to determine what I was seeking in a woman (humor, the ability to go to a sports game, someone who understood me, a person who enjoyed music), I began to quality dates. With my end result, I don’t feel I’ve settled at all.

Photo by: Ezwa