The General Standard

I have a friend who said that she made a list of characteristics that she wanted in a man to put under her pillow and pray on it. That would be a perfectly fine thing to do with the exception of the fact that I found some of her requirements a little bit on the extreme side. For instance she wanted a man who didn’t smoke, didn’t drink, didn’t curse, didn’t have any kids, made at least six figures a year, and doesn’t lie and that’s just to name a few. Now those are nice to hope for but realistically is any woman going to find a man who doesn’t smoke, and doesn’t drink, maybe one or the other would be plausible but not both. And a man who doesn’t curse, and doesn’t lie and who doesn’t have any kids is damn near impossible. I mean it is very logical that we all have standards that we want the man we are looking for to have but maybe we should be asking ourselves are these standards reasonable or are they just too high for any man to ever meet?

It is nice to think that we can pick and choose which qualities gets instilled in our mates and if we could instantly remove the ones that we don’t necessarily like but life just doesn’t work that way. We love who we love and we take them with the good and the bad. Altering them to our satisfaction just isn’t an option nor should it be. What would we do with someone who was a perfect match to our criteria? We’d often find ourselves a little bit bored looking for something about them that is unique and special and that sets them apart from any other mate you could possibly want to be with. We’re all bound to find little parts of our mates personalities that we would like to make disappear but would they be the person you really want to be with without them.

With our checklist in hand we women sometimes approach men with the attitude that if there’s a quality on our list that they don’t have they haven’t got a shot and I have found out that men find that attitude to be very intimidating. It can not only make a man feel inadequate around a woman but it could even make him live under his potential believing that that is what we expect of them anyway. Now I am in no way saying that we shouldn’t have high standards for ourselves that there aren’t things that we have a right to expect from men but I think that women need to reevaluate their lists and think long and hard about whether they are going to be able to find a man that can live up to each and every one of those must have qualities. We have a right to expect men to respect us and that we’re treated with decency and that each partner equally pull their weight in a relationship. But when it comes to things like no drinking, no smoking, no kids, or the salary that they make…these are items on the list that may be a little too much to ask for.

We all want the “perfect” man but let’s get real, who in this world is perfect? We women ourselves are far from perfect so why on earth would we ever expect the men in our lives to be. I’m not saying that we should just expect the worst and then if we happen to get better then what we expected then we’ve done good for ourselves. Well, maybe that is what I’m saying. Let’s face it, most men we’ve come in contact with have cheated, lied, or have stolen, if not from us from someone we know. Why are we surprised when they repeat the same behavior to someone else? Why do we keep expecting men to be these infallible, unflawed, human beings when we obviously and painfully know better? Yet still the next time we hold out immeasurable hope of a different outcome. Now that’s not to say that there aren’t some men out here that can do right by a woman and that do know how to treat a good woman when he has one but I’m quite sure that they had a woman who accepted them whether they were flawed or not. Now for my friend who still puts the paper under her pillow with her list of high standards that a man must meet, I am not saying don’t have any standards for the men that come into your life. I just hope that you realize that you may be searching for that perfect man with those perfect qualities for a very long time.

Jimmetta Carpenter
The Diary: Succession of Lies (Release Date To Be Announced)
Writing as “Jaycee Durant”
www.freefalllit.com
http://unpleasantlyplump.wordpress.com/
http://writetobe.wordpress.com/
http://spokenlikeaqueen.blogspot.com/
www.myspace.com/jcladyluv
www.lulu.com/ladybugpress
www.authorsden.com/jimmettacarpenter