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Online Dating – The Secret to Finding the Perfect Partner

Posted on 11. Jan, 2010 by Jack in Lifestyle, Relationships and Dating

2010 heralds the start of a new decade, so I’m going to kick the year off with a dating revelation.

The secret formula for finding the perfect partner is…drum roll please – to stop looking for them.

Looking For Mr Right

Many women can reel off a list of the essential qualities they’re looking for in a partner. And that’s when looking for the love of their life can leave reality behind and enter the realms of romantic fiction. The longer the list of what they expect in their ‘perfect partner’, the least likely it is that this person will actually exist.

Here are some examples to illustrate what I mean.

The Free Spirit

My friend Alex prefers men who are worldly-wise, free spirits who tend to buck convention. At a New Year street party I clocked someone who I immediately knew would ring Alex’s bell; he had the rugged traveller type look that she can’t resist and was having a great time – laughing, hugging people and dancing whilst taking the occasional slug from a bottle of rum. Sure enough Alex danced her way closer to him. Unfortunately there must have been around 30,000 people dancing in the street and as Alex neared her potential love match he was sucked from her grasp and into the swaying throng.
We spotted him again at about half past midnight lying flat out on the ground, comatose. At a party which lasted till dawn he’d barely made it past midnight. It was the perfect metaphor. You just knew that any relationship with him might be fun in the short term, but there was no way it was going to last the distance. This is Alex’s type of man… and Alex is still single.

The Man Who Has Everything

Michelle was in her early forties, slim, attractive with a mane of black hair, had a good job, her own house and drove a sports car. She also had a great personality, but she’d never came close to finding herself in a serious relationship and here’s why – she had a list.
The man she was looking for had to be tall with dark hair, between 35 and 45, have a good job, a nice car and his own home. Oh, and he had to be someone who wore a suit and would pay for everything. He was a fictional character.

I’ve recently learned that Michelle is getting married next year. A work colleague set her up on a blind date and the sparks flew immediately. Here’s the irony and an important dating lesson: her future husband is of average height, shaven headed and never, ever wears a suit – in fact he’s almost the opposite of what Michelle was looking for in a man for twenty years.

Looking for Miss Right

The Perfect Woman

Men can be equally guilty for compiling mental lists of what constitutes their ideal woman and sometimes aren’t able to tell sparkly baubles from the genuine article.
If I described a woman who was so beautiful that she turned heads whenever she walked into a room, was also tall with a perfect figure and had a smile which made the sun seem dim by comparison, how many men would hold their hands up and say ‘she fits the bill perfectly’?

A few years ago I was with a group of friends in a cosy little rustic bar in Hay-on-Wye when the woman I just described walked in. She was a friend of one of the group and as the only empty chair was the one next to me I was handed the winning lottery ticket. The funny thing was that after speaking to her for about five minutes, I found my attention drifting back to the main group. Another ten minutes and I’d almost forgotten she was there. She was beautiful and had probably never had to try hard to attract the opposite sex, but the downside to this was that she had never developed much of a personality.
I learned a valuable lesson that night. She might have been the most beautiful woman in the group…hell in the county even, but she wasn’t the most attractive; the ones with personality were.

The point is that when it comes to looking for the perfect partner, whilst it’s only natural to have preferences, lists are for the supermarket, not for finding a soul mate.

Take my advice, dump the lists and who knows, love might rear its head in the most unexpected of places. In the words of the song:

Don’t force it, don’t push it, let it happen naturally.

Tags: dating advice, dating tips, finding the perfect partner, looking for Mr Right, love match, man who has everything, Online dating, relationships online, soul mate, the perfect woman

Jack Montgomery

Author for the online friendship and dating site Sparkle; co-author of two travel guidebooks, blogger and seriously bad poet.

Jack - has written 34 posts on Sparkle in my life. Contact the author

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