The Confounded Checklist

We begin building a prototype of our perfect person at the very moment  we land our first crush. I am not sure about the rest of the world but my oldest son cleared that milestone on the third day of kindergarten.  He bounced off the school bus with his freckles in all his glory and gleefully announced as his foot hit the sidewalk “Mommy you’re not my girlfriend anymore, Maddie is!” …”Oh reheheheallly!!!”  And it begins….. We spend our formative years building this exhaustive list that we use to measure those who make us feel fuzzy and are only a pretty strangers to us at first.  These checklists used to be safe and reliable in the good ole’ days. They used to also be built from home grown communities and fathers and REAL PEOPLE.  

So here we uncover another antiquated dating ritual that we still use and which no longer serves the vast majority of those who use them. These days Disney has replaced reality in the building blocks of who we expect to sweep us off our feet. We meticulously design our soul mate between our ears fiber by fiber as if we can order them online and have them built. Often times, we create these confounded checklists during a time when life is more of a look into the future than grounded in the here and now.

Do we ever find the living version of this confounded checklist? And let earth shake with a resounding NO!!! Does this mean we won’t find our soul mate along with the unconditional and immeasurable love that we deserve? Heck no. We not only can find love, but it’s actually probable if we stop the frilling self-sabotage and dare to hold ourselves as accountable as we do our partners.  When we follow the rules and acknowledge that unless you are an actual Prince or Princess you are subject to the laws of attraction and most of the time we just need get over ourselves. The fact of the matter is that there is a group of people who literally build a force field of their own expectations around them and effectively trap themselves in a single stasis.

Ok so we’ve landed square on our ass in the middle of life. What do we do when  reality bites us hard? We need to begin by making sure first and foremost, that our deserve levels are intact and that we are capable determining Patti’s 5 Non-Negotiables. We need to understand what our League is and who might actually want to see us naked for the rest of our days. We then need to make sure that our checklists have been recalibrated to our current reality.  We need to follow it up by making sure that who we are and where we are in life is reflected in who we are allowing ourselves to consider.

A great way to tackle this particular monster is to look and see who wants to meet us. Next, after we have dated enough to know who is available to us, we can begin grasping the concept of our perfect partner. At that point we have a really solid shot at what it looks like to build a real live, carbon based relationship.  Awesome! In the next squeak we will sink our teeth into this concept.

Some of us may have done a good job of updating the confounded checklists we carry around in our head. Some of us may need a complete overhaul. Let’s say we keep that which serves our goals for happily ever after and scrap the rest. There is so much freedom in a commitment to abandon an antiquated system which leaves us single and frustrated rather than face the roar of fear. Be Bold. Chuck the confounded checklists we began forming during the days where we were likely to actually run around in a princess costume and tiara…guys replace that visual with cape and a light saber.

Here’s what one chick’s checklist may look like. My Dreamy Prince will…

• Work in the field of Law or be a doctor
• He will play the guitar
• He will ride a motorcycle
• He will be 6 feet tall
• He will never have been married
• He will be a member of my very same church
• He will not have any children
• He will have blue eyes
• He will be the picture of health and never be weak
• He will love to listen to me talk about myself for hours

Oh, go ahead and roll your eyes. I built that list from ACTUAL DEMANDS m'dear. Do you see how absolutely nothing in that confounded checklist has anything to do with how he is willing to treat us or how we are able to support each other’s hopes and dreams?  Do you also see how there is no reverence to the qualities that will actually serve our needs? At one time, I believed that women were more likely than men to sabotage their own relationship futures by holding onto these notions of fantasized perfection. But they aren’t. Men do it too.  No doubt, we earnestly give it a good college try when we choose our first love and we make every attempt to marry our perfect checklist. We also watch it unravel when the heartbeat of a relationship isn’t served by our confounded checklist.

There are some tools from Disney that we can take on the road to reality and put to good use. The mirror, mirror on the wall is quite handy in realizing that we are eternally 25 in our heads…but only in our heads.  The magic carpet ride truly requires some psychedelic substances and if we are going to have a Princess complex whether we be girl or boy…. Our Daddy’s face needs to be on the money we spend.

Let’s face it! The white horse is more likely ridden by the guy who will tie us to the train tracks and when you’re climbing her hair up the castle wall, boys…it’s probably a weave. Dating can be a little confusing as it does take us out of the daily routine of our reality. Still I implore you to use the tools of dating Earthlings. If you date men then mold your expectations of a relationship to those which can be accomplished by a man. If you date women do the same. Men need space to veg out in front of sports center and to be emotionally vulnerable. They need someone who will give them a break from life’s stressors of being the protector and provider. Women need someone who will understand that leaving the toilet seat up can in fact mean that you don’t consider her needs. Women want men to make them feel chosen and who anticipates her needs and takes care of some of the little things in life. Men need women who understand that they are brilliant and complex and yet their needs are simple. Food, Sex, Money all things flow through these channels in their guy heads.

I would love to see a virtual bonfire of the fairytale inspired, unobtainable traits we screen strangers against  in all the glory of the bras burned in the 1960s. Ha! Ya know the thing I hear from just about everyone who allows me into their bubble, is they really want someone to pick up the phone when they’ve had something in life raise their blood pressure. They want someone to share life’s little victories. They want someone to wonder around with on Saturday and eat dinner with when they come home from work. They want someone who can hold the thing while they screw it into the wall and they want someone to snag the dry cleaning occasionally. We really don’t miss the idealized traits of Aladdin when we find ourselves alone. We miss the way we share life’s monotony. We miss the person who knows how we like our coffee and understands why we are just more comfortable in life when we drink red bull out of a wine glass.

We just want to be loved, unconditionally and without measure. Yes passionately, we all deserve to be the sexiest thing our partner can imagine. But after that 30 minutes of the day is over, we cherish the comfort of knowing that for the other 23 and half hours of the day we are understood and supported. Happily Ever After looks a lot more simple than riding off into the sunset on a magic carpet. It looks a lot more like sitting on the back porch, next to a grill watching the sunset in ponytails, flip flops and ball caps.