If he can motorboat me, then I'm not interested

This weekend I was out with girlfriends and the subject of “ type” came up. In fact, every time I am out with any of my girlfriends, whether they are married or single, this topic always seems to come up. They always seem to be fascinated with my response to this question…no matter how many times we talk about it. The strange thing about types is that mine always changes…depending on what stage I am at in my life and because it is always changing, I have to ask myself if men really get better with age or do women just seem to lower their standards?

What constitutes type? To me, a “type” is a list of qualities/characteristics that I am looking for in my quest to find my perfect match. You know, tall, short, funny, serious, outgoing, shy, athletic, and hardworking…just to name a few. I consider my list to be my personal list of “goodness”. Through fate, chance, or hard work, it doesn’t matter which one, I feel like my perfect match should meet a good amount of these qualities/characteristics that I am instinctively attracted to. The payoff to finding this person is that I will probably end up finding someone that I want to share my stories with, spend my time with, and take my clothes off in front of. But because it has been so long since I have found someone like this, I can only imagine finding this person would feel something like winning the lottery.

I found myself thinking about types a lot this weekend. The funny thing is that when I meet men out, I often don’t think about my “type” until after the fact. I mean, no one ever breaks out their “list of goodness” and starts checking things off during an initial meeting. And if they do, then I think they have the answer as to why they are still single. I just tend to look at the people I am carrying on a conversation with and just know in my heart if they are my type or not.

My problem now with picking my type is that I still tend to compare everyone I meet to my ex-husband, even though we have been divorced for almost five years. Now…was my ex-husband perfect? Hell no…after all, he dumped me and anyone who dumps me obviously doesn’t have their head screwed on straight, right? But I digress.

My type is tall…with a great sense of humor. I need someone that can laugh at himself as well as make me laugh. Someone that sees the humor in every aspect of life, can carry on a level headed conversation, and who can dress well. Someone who can focus on more than just himself, who is honest, and who believes rock paper scissors is an acceptable way to settle an argument. Pretty much Ryan Reynolds minus his wife Scarlett Johansen. Of course I have done the honorable thing and given many guys, who didn’t meet this criteria, a chance and suddenly found myself attracted to them. But I have also met guys who match my criteria perfectly and realized in as little as five minutes that I could not spend another minute with them. But if you had a line up of ten guys that you thought would be a perfect match for me I would always gravitate to the tall, funny one that looked like Ryan Reynolds. I can’t help it…it’s just how I was made!

I have several girlfriends that say they don’t have a type…and I honestly believe that they don’t because they never date any one type of man consistently. But for me, there have always been similarities in the guys I have dated…funny, tall, good dads, yes men, with foot fetishes who tend to back down from a good discussion and give me my way. Many of them have also been…ummm….let’s say…thrifty. For example, I met a guy on Saturday night that was to cheap to pay for drinks at the bar, so he brought his own bottle of alcohol and kept going out to his car to do shots. I kid you not! No more explanation needed as to why he is still single.

All of this makes me think that maybe I need to branch out and date someone that doesn’t fit my list of goodness…someone who is the total opposite of tall, funny, and outgoing...you know someone that is maybe shy, sweaty, silent, can’t carry on a conversation and is so short he can motorboat me. Don’t laugh…it might be just what I need.