Ask the Dating Analyst
Reality Check
Some of us are losing our sense of reality about people. Being able to specify what we want is causing some of us to develop a rigid and demanding approach to the quest for someone to love.
The conditions and specifications in some profiles suggest the designer mate phenomenon: someone you can order custom-made to your specifications. You’d like to have this feature but not that, a little of x but none of y. Six feet 1 inch tall is OK, six feet 0 inches not OK.
Karla, 27, starts out reasonably enough: “just looking for someone to enjoy this ride of life with.” That could be many people – a nice open approach. But right away the features game begins. “You must not have missing or badly messed up teeth.” “You must be independent and self–sufficient” (a little like saying you must be smart and intelligent). You must have a good sense of humor, must have a picture on your page (but you can’t be posing with your shirt off), must be between 25 and 35, and finally, Karla lets you know that if you can’t support her addiction to the Miami Hurricanes, then it’s no go.
Of course it’s reasonable to have an idea of what you want in a mate, but the conditionality of some of these requests (“don’t bother replying if….”) might eliminate just the person for you. Suppose Mr. Right has just one missing tooth (upper molar, right side)? He’s out of the running? Or should he contact Karla only after he’s had an implant?
Take Jane, age 34. Jane’s desire for a robot mate is close to fantasy land. She wants someone who is “independent,” “gives as much as he takes,” and “opens doors” (presumably for her), and who “compliments me in every way.” And, to boot, this person must know “when to let me take the lead” (boy, is that ever a tough one).
Jane wants you to have pictures and to “choose your words carefully” because she is a writer and if you don’t appreciate the “english language” (sic) “that’s a deal breaker.” Jane is surprisingly careless with words for a self-described writer. She says she wants a man who “compliments me in every way” but presumably she means complement, not compliment. (One can never assume.) But OK, Jane is not perfect and maybe even a bit of a hypocrite, but we’ll let that go – she might still be a great person.
Love is not manufacturing, love is not cooking by the recipe, and humans are not customizable. We come as we are – virtually all of us – with flaws, faults, contradictions, and many layers of built-up stuff.
Michael, 44, seems to understand. Besides his funny and disarming opening line, “I’ve been told I’m handsome and smart, but let’s leave my mother out of this,” Michael manages to get in a few specifications of his own, but in a way that takes the edge off the high expectations.
“I don’t need perfection, just someone who makes the effort.” You get the sense that Michael would be happy to hear what the other person has to say about herself, without stamping his foot about what preconditions she must meet before replying.
Marcy, 46, also seems to get it. She begins with a straightforward and charming admission of the difficulty she has finding someone to be with, then goes on to tell in a short space quite a bit about herself. What she’s looking for takes up only two and half lines at the end of her profile. Even then it’s not so much rigidly defined specifications as reasonable traits that include a great many men: “someone to dine with, travel with, go to the movies with, and laugh with.”
Marcy notes that she appreciates “men raised to be gentlemen.” She’s not saying you have to be a gentlemen or don’t bother replying. There’s a difference between “I like this and that” and “You have to be this and that.”
In the end, how you say things says a lot about who you are, and opens up or closes down possibilities.
By Tom Dichter, the LoveHowTo Dating Analyst
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