Individual Partner Preferences

[Satine]

I can't help but notice that the issue of 'what women/men want' keeps on coming up, more often, it seems, aimed at women. So I propose that a few of us (as many as are willing) note down here just what they want out of a partner, so that we have a list of examples to draw on should claims be made again that 'women want an outstanding man' or 'only alphas get partners', and so on.

Poster First

For me, I am female and I want a partner (preferably male) who:

- is peaceful enough not to start fights, but is strong enough to cope if someone tries to draw him into a fight. I don't want to have to worry that I'll have to try and break up fights, but I want to know that I'm safe with this man. (Note: this doesn't necessarily mean someone who can fight, it can be someone who's able to calm down a situation/stop if from escalating should it continue. My current partner is like this and it works well.)

- has a casual interest in educating himself. I'm not looking for a die-hard academic who I'll have trouble keeping up with over a pint, nor a simpleton who can't grasp what the placebo effect is. I'm interested in someone who's just naturally curious. That's all.

- is practical enough to be able to deal with normal household problems, such as a blocked sink.

- is reasonably tidy. Doesn't need to be a neat-freak, just not someone who leaves his pants on the bedroom floor and expects me to pick them up.

- has a similar musical taste to me (underground dance music).

- doesn't take himself too seriously in the bedroom. (Constantly having to reassure a bloke about penis size gets boring quickly. If it's genuinely an issue there are ways around it, and they don't involve surgery).

- doesn't have too much of a problem showing affection. Just looking like friends when out in public is fine, but I want to be able to elicit a hug when I come home from work etc.

- has a sense of humour. By which I mean, doesn't just give me annoyed looks when I make a joke. Him being silly is a plus but not an essential.

- will tell me if I've got something wrong. I'd rather have the security of this than have a yes-man.

- is secure enough to accept that, if I'm with him, then my exes aren't an issue. If I've moved on, I've moved on. So I want a partner who doesn't obsess about my relationship history.

- has had family difficulties so understands what I mean when I run into difficulties with my own. (Have had big problems with mine and occasionally they still come up, so an understanding of the underlying feelings and conflicting feelings is essential).

 

[Argamemnon]

You would never want me.

 

[Satine]

You would never want me.

But what would you want in a partner. This is the point I'm making: different people want different things. All men don't want the same thing, all women don't want the same thing. I'm trying to draw out people's individuality.

 

[I_Walk_Alone]

I can't help but notice that the issue of 'what women/men want' keeps on coming up, more often, it seems, aimed at women. So I propose that a few of us (as many as are willing) note down here just what they want out of a partner, so that we have a list of examples to draw on should claims be made again that 'women want an outstanding man' or 'only alphas get partners', and so on.

Poster First

For me, I am female and I want a partner (preferably male) who:

- is peaceful enough not to start fights, but is strong enough to cope if someone tries to draw him into a fight. I don't want to have to worry that I'll have to try and break up fights, but I want to know that I'm safe with this man. (Note: this doesn't necessarily mean someone who can fight, it can be someone who's able to calm down a situation/stop if from escalating should it continue. My current partner is like this and it works well.)

- has a casual interest in educating himself. I'm not looking for a die-hard academic who I'll have trouble keeping up with over a pint, nor a simpleton who can't grasp what the placebo effect is. I'm interested in someone who's just naturally curious. That's all.

- is practical enough to be able to deal with normal household problems, such as a blocked sink.

- is reasonably tidy. Doesn't need to be a neat-freak, just not someone who leaves his pants on the bedroom floor and expects me to pick them up.

- has a similar musical taste to me (underground dance music).

- doesn't take himself too seriously in the bedroom. (Constantly having to reassure a bloke about penis size gets boring quickly. If it's genuinely an issue there are ways around it, and they don't involve surgery).

- doesn't have too much of a problem showing affection. Just looking like friends when out in public is fine, but I want to be able to elicit a hug when I come home from work etc.

- has a sense of humour. By which I mean, doesn't just give me annoyed looks when I make a joke. Him being silly is a plus but not an essential.

- will tell me if I've got something wrong. I'd rather have the security of this than have a yes-man.

- is secure enough to accept that, if I'm with him, then my exes aren't an issue. If I've moved on, I've moved on. So I want a partner who doesn't obsess about my relationship history.

- has had family difficulties so understands what I mean when I run into difficulties with my own. (Have had big problems with mine and occasionally they still come up, so an understanding of the underlying feelings and conflicting feelings is essential).

Gee, I hope you're not one in a million

You make it all sound so easy!!

 

[Satine]

What about your own preferences, I Walk Alone? Let's hear 'em!

 

[meatcake]

i recently made a list of my favorite people - the ones at the top had a lot of things in common -

• a sweet nature
• a silly/fun sense of humor
• not too confident
• similar level of attractiveness (somewhere in the middle)

and then bonus things

• artistic/creative/musical
• likes reading
• sad or at least understands depression
• likes learning
• somewhat independent
• likes animals (cats=double bonus)

 

[klytus]

Satine, what you are looking for isn't a needle in a haystack - such men ought to abound.

Now, what I am looking for. She has to be around my age to begin with and have a very profound personality that is - under expectable circumstances - unlikely to change significantly.

Some must-haves:
1. Honesty.
2. Intelligence and (working wholeheartedly on) university education: Either a mathematician, physicist, chemist or biologist, or some interdisciplinary field of science. She must be "interdisciplinary-curious" and mathematically-inclined. Certain faculties of engineering are acceptable, too.
3. Fidelity.
4. Compassion.
5. Companionship.
6. Looks.
7. Sensuality/Eroticism.
8. Conversation.
9. Partner in love.
10. Trustworthiness.
11. Demonstrates uniqueness.
12. Is ambitious and very curious.
13. Is creative, imaginative and has a well-developed capacity for abstraction.
14. Well-groomed.
15. Playful / touchy-feely.
16. Likes me for who I am.
17. Between 5'2" and 5'9".
18. Hates heels.
19. Hates to party.
20. Hates to drink alcohol.
21. Doesn't smoke and doesn't do drugs.
22. Hates to dress like women.
23. Loves trekking / hiking / going on adventurous journeys. Loves forests, as a consequence.
24. Skinny / athletic body type.
25. Is a misanthrope, a nihilist in the sense of this article: "On Misanthropy and Nihilism."
27. Has an intact, loving family, ideally.
28. Speaks at least English fluently.
29. Has no friends and is a loner.

Some great-to-haves:
- Long hair with low frequency curls.
- Freckles.
- Green eyes.
- Dark hair. Naturally red hair is pretty, too.

Basically, I am looking for a woman whose personality and philosophy on life is very similar to mine. Heh. Let me comment on all of this briefly.

« Has no friends and is a loner. » - I admit, that sounds a bit weird; I am just not particularly interested in having to deal with her friends. I am a lone wolf, or at least sufficiently selective to not have any friends - or people in general - to spend time with. I wouldn't want to have to befriend her friends in order to not alienate her from them. Therefore it'd be better if she hadn't any friends herself.

##2, 19, 20, 21, 23, 24, 27 and 28 are indispensable. Some criteria after #18 are probably alterable to a certain degree. The gender-independent aspects are all true for me. What would I do with a woman who, say, loves to dance? Should I constantly disappoint her, make her sad or become good at something I truly hate? Or what about a woman who loves to party (pretty much all women of my age) - should I go on a party with her and wait silently in a corner (because I don't want to kill everyone's fun) until she's done doing what makes her happy? Sounds downright silly to me. I could stay at home and hope she doesn't cheat on me after getting drunk and hit on by numerous horny guys. -- And if criterion #2 isn't met, there's not much outside of the bedroom we could do together. While that might be sufficient for some people, I doubt it's a path to happiness in the long run. Perhaps we could go trekking for weeks, but that's, again, likely something only very few women are into.

 

[Nicholas]

There could be a long answer, or a short one, or a very short one.
My girl must be very special, because I don't want a pastime, I want a person to share all my life with.

What would make her special?

• She should understand me and I should be able to understand her. This probably means very similar personality types (mayer briggs types? I don't know). This means: emphatic, sensitive, daydreamer, etc.
• We should like or at least accept each other's main hobbies and interests. This is to avoid incompatibilities like "I am going there, to do this and this, and you're gonna stay home as always because you don't like it".
• The first point about personality should already imply most important things, but if not, then these are also important: a great sense of humor (likes to laugh all the time, able to take everything like a joke), likes beauty and arts without being obsessed about appearance and materialism, etc.

All the rest should be pretty "minor" I guess... like liking animals (cat rules!) or stuff like that. Oh, well, I must find her pretty of course, physically, but that's not a problem for me. I find the vast majority of girls very pretty anyway, I'm not picky in this case.

That's all. This thread is interesting... I think it shows how obsessed with perfection we are. It is a problem anyway. I know that if I am too picky and I try to find the most perfect girl in the world, I might never find her and be miserable all my life.
Sometimes I realize that it's not necessary to find the perfect partner to achieve our goal. It's possible to be very happy with someone who is not "theoretically" perfect, but who we find very special anyway.

The problem is I can't even find someone at all now, not even female friends , LOL, thanks to my damn problems. :: I can't afford a girl, LOL.

 

[klytus]

I think it shows how obsessed with perfection we are.

Is it perfection, or are we just more interested in something we can safely say lasts more than a night? For I could not imagine anything else with most women my age - and I am not interested in flings. As to relationships, perfection to me is not utmost completeness, it is a condition in which you cannot take away a single aspect without worsening its quality. It is essentially significant to feel convinced that the person is the right one for the moment and that there is no prospective end of the relationship.

It's possible to be very happy with someone who is not "theoretically" perfect, but who we find very special anyway.

That is true, in theory. The problem I see is that eventually none of the two people involved will be able to pretend interest in or having fun with a certain activity the other one holds dear, while clearly being disinterested. Gradually, the actual differences will surface, rendering the relationship increasingly unstable - then all it takes to cut the bonds is a single unprovidential situation.

 

[Satine]

That is true, in theory. The problem I see is that eventually none of the two people involved will be able to pretend interest in or having fun with a certain activity the other one holds dear, while clearly being disinterested. Gradually, the actual differences will surface, rendering the relationship increasingly unstable - then all it takes to cut the bonds is a single unprovidential situation.

I've just had this last week with my other half. He still loves clubbing, I'm largely bored of it. But, even though our interest in that is diverging, we still have important stuff in common: a drive to learn how to be self-sufficient, keen-ness to talk about deeper stuff (politics, religion etc.), almost complete misanthropy etc.

There's a certain amount of evolving together, so to an extent, differing or diverging interests isn't a catastrophe.

I'm glad this thread has attracted more interest, the point I was trying to make right from the beginning was that not all of us want a partner with an Adonis physique and a 6-figure salary. If I had a partner like that, I'd feel like a right underachiever. I'd find it really awkward, myself.

 

[klytus]

There's a certain amount of evolving together, so to an extent, differing or diverging interests isn't a catastrophe.

It depends on which interests or traits it affects. If significant aspects of the relationship begin to devolve, it will eventually lead to splitting up. I wasn't speaking about largely irrelevant commonalities.