I've always considered myself who didn't have a type. Not just so I didn't seem shallow but also because I honestly didn't feel like I had an obvious checklist of what someone I was looking for must have.
I've hated the idea of confining myself to a particular type of person. I fluctuate in interests frequently so what I liked a year or even a few weeks ago, may not be true today. Every guy (and girls) I've ever liked has been different from the last. I've liked tall guys, short guys, skinny guys, chubby guys. Light hair, dark hair, light skin, bluefish, redfish. But I will say, a lot of times they do have common personality traits, interests and mannerisms. I usually shoot for funny people, I take a lot of value in being able to laugh. I often struggle to manage relationships with people who don't make me laugh, this being said, I'm very easy to make laugh, so if they cannot do that, the simplest of tasks, I do not gain much from them. I also enjoy creatives. I'm an artist myself and people who cannot appreciate creativity and have a wide range of interests are boring.
However, lately, I've started to believe that maybe knowing exactly what you're looking for might be a great aid if you're hoping to be happy in a relationship, even if that includes appearance.
I spent my holiday weekend with my cousin her "boyfriend" (I don't know what they are) and his friends (another couple). I had never met him prior to this but I realized that maybe my cousin had it figured out. It had me thinking "where do I get one of those?", I won't go into details but he had a lot of characteristics that I always looked for and started to believe were just too good to be true to find all in one person, at least in the little town we live in. But she found one. And I don't even think she was looking. It made me kind of jealous, not necessarily for her boyfriend, but my own version of him.
Then, last night I had a dream, that a guy at an ice cream shop scooped me way more ice cream than everyone else, like...5x more, and everyone there noticed, I was encouraged to talk to him by other restaurant goers. So I asked him for his Instagram (wow, social media even in dreams) and we chatted for a bit, only for him to unfollow me and stop responding overnight. Leaving me wondering if I should message him and ask him if I had done something wrong. I think this is one of my fears mostly, meeting someone, enjoying them, and then having them disappear. The reason this dream stuck out to me was that of how the guy looked. Now, they say our brains cannot create faces of people we have never seen before, but I did not know him, so he must have been a stranger. I liked this guy, why aren't I going for something I REALLY like. Maybe personality is NOT enough.
I mean, aren't you not supposed to judge a book by it's cover and get to know someone first? You can't help who you like but maybe being picky isn't a bad thing. In a relationship, the ultimate goal is to stay together. But I keep ending up in relationships where I realize...I don't even like him. Not like that anyway. No relationship is perfect but I feel like I always hit roadblocks I could have avoided if I noticed red flags from the beginning. Instead of hoping things will be better, just ditching it then and there. My best friend always did that, decided to "just be friends" with guys after only a date or two, because he just wasn't everything. I couldn't understand it until very recently.
Maybe, I'm not picky because I'm settling. Maybe I'm afraid of not being good enough for someone else. Maybe I think I'll find something really really good and get hurt. But isn't it a bigger waste of time to date someone who's just "pretty cool". I've never had hard feelings when I just wasn't someone's type. You're always ugly to someone, and that's okay. But why do I feel so bad about thinking that way about others?
I should pick people who I share more interests with rather than settling on, "well, we both like cats" or dating someone just because you aren't not attracted by them. Don't we deserve to feel butterflies when we see the person we like? I should want to talk to them all day, and I'd hope they'd feel the same way about me. Whether it's a real thing or not, aren't we supposed to find a "soulmate"? I'm pretty sure you're not going to find it in settling. Yes, I'm very young, but you have to start somewhere. I never want to put men, or relationships over myself, but isn't that exactly what I'm doing if I not going for what makes me happy?
It's probably not a good sign if you're dating someone and a friend asks you. "What do you like about them?" and you stall or give generic answers. If you constantly look at them and think, I wish they dressed a little differently. I wish they liked thriller movies. I wish they liked sports. One or two is okay, but understand, that if the list of wishes is getting longer, it is NOT going to get better. They don't have to have negative qualities for you to not like the qualtiies they have, they just don't suit your needs.
My conclusion, maybe it's okay to just go right for what I want. Not just looks, not just personality. If I know I like when guys have long hair, I should date a guy with long hair. If I know I like people who like art, I should be friends with people who like art. I'm not going to start excluding people because they don't fit the requirements of a fictional checklist (and I don't think you should either) but don't be afraid to turn someone down because they aren't what you're looking for.
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