A friend recently posted her thoughts about relationships on fb, about how the image of the ideal man changes as a woman grows older (and wiser?) and how it was particularly illustrated in the film 'Up in the Air'. In a nutshell the younger girl in the film had this really long list of conditions ("he has to have...") for her ideal man, whereas the older woman wasn't as harsh on her conditions ("a nice smile might do it.."). To be honest when I watched this film, I don't think I got the juxtaposition of the two women.
This got me thinking about my own situation. What do I look for in a girl? I was a very late bloomer, probably due to my childhood circumstances - we were living in QLD at the time and when my parents got divorced I moved with my mother to Sydney to be with the rest of her side of the family. So I had left my friends behind and got placed in a strange place. My parents tried to get back together again a yr and a half later, so we moved back to QLD. Got put back into my old school where all my friends were still there, but I noticed a lot has changed. It didn't last long and we got shipped back to Sydney where I was enrolled in yet another school, this time it was an all boys school. Unlike many of the other students there, I didn't have any childhood friends within walking distance, and facebook didn't exist back then either so I pretty much lost contact with all my childhood friends. Perhaps all that trauma made me into such shy and quiet boy. Needless to say when I got into uni, I knew I needed to change and change I did.
Anyways, back to relationships. I had my first girlfriend when I was about 22yrs old, she was pretty, had a nice enough personality, though she had her baggage, I had mine too (*hi5* to those who watched 'How I Met Your Mother' recently). Things didn't work out so we went our separate ways and though I don't think we hold a grudge to each other, we don't really speak anymore.
So what were my conditions? Back then I don't think I had much of a list, besides the usual stuff like "pretty, caring, great to talk to, etc" and to be honest, I probably overlooked most of anyones flaws because I was so happy that I was finally in a relationship and that someone actually liked me enough to call me her boyfriend. Needless to say, that relationship didn't last long. I guess both of us got into the relationship for the wrong reasons.
A few years on and a little bit wiser, my conditions have changed from something very material to something more eternal. Having a pretty face would be a bonus, but in the end a pretty face doesn't last. The most important condition that I have, is that she is Catholic, or at least a Christian. All arguments aside about whether or not God exists, you have to admit, those who follow the beliefs have a certain type of personality. And no, not a "crazy" personality. A true believer has a set of morals which I believe the bible has taught very well. A true believer has a positive outlook on life because they know of the sacrifice that Jesus gave to us. A true believer is a person that knows how to truly love because of the love that God has for us.
I've totally gone off track from what I intended to write (lol), but I thought that was an important point for me to say. Though to be fair, just because you aren't a Christian does not mean you can't have all the qualities that a good Christian does, but in my opinion, there's a higher chance of finding "the one" among the good Christians than randomly looking in the secular world that we have come to live in.
So if you've read my previous post, you'd probably gather that I was interested in a particular girl and had decided to "just be friends". I feel I need to explain further as I was quite intentionally cryptic. I don't know how it works in the real world but for me, if I were to chase a girl and not get some sign that she likes me too, I would most likely give up after a while, this is why I think the whole "play hard to get" idea is stupid, because if your tactic is to show no interest in order to "challenge" us more, some of us are going to take it at face value and believe that you have no interest at all. This sort of leads to my next problem. Thinking back on all the girls that I've liked in the past, I realise I have a hard time figuring out if the girl genuinely likes me or is just being nice. My friendships with those girls don't seem to last that long after I "confess" and honestly that just sucks because they were close friends (at least to me they were). And I consider this girl a close friend now too and in all honesty, I would love it if we ended up as a couple, but it wouldn't be nice if I took that blind chance to "confess" and then lose that kind of friendship again, you're worth too much to waste on a chance.
