How do I choose 'The One'?.... Part I

Well,this was a thread that started spooling in my head quite some time back in one of my earlier posts....
How does one know if she's 'the one'? What should I look for? How does one differentiate between a crush and love?

I've been pondering over these things for quite sometime now.... (I've nothing better to do!)... A friend of mine approached me with this problem of his.... Usually,I've got an advice for everything...! Pathetic, I know....! But his questions silenced me.... How does one find out if a girl he's been thinking about is worth the thought or not? If yes,what should he do about it?

Well... I don't know how a person can CHOOSE a girl to love...the whole idea seems opposite to the notion of love... But what I can try is set up parameters by which one can filter out the ones that he does not love...and the rest I think will automatically fall in place...

I maybe naive when I say this....but what a guy expects out of a girl is pretty much the same everywhere... At least among the people I know,I've found that their notions about an ideal mate is similar to each other... So here is a general idea...Do not sue me if I'm wrong....!

What does a guy expect out of a girl? A girl that he is attracted to....Physically,mentally, emotionally,spiritually(??).....two or more of the above criteria must hold....Only one? Then please forget it and move on...

Well I've kinda come up with a list...It's not exhaustive,but I guess it's sufficient.. Here's what a typical boy would expect from his would-be gal-

• She must continue to challenge him (Physically,mentally, emotionally,spiritually(??))... By this I mean that there are some qualities that he liked in her,these should hold for some time...
• She must make it comfortable for him to talk about personal issues without any awkwardness..
• She must be a likable person,not only for her close friends but her acquaintances as well... (This seems trivial but trust me it's important!)
• She must be ambitious to the extent of having a good life,for herself and her family... (call me chauvinistic,but guys aren't really drawn to overly ambitious girls...at least normal guys aren't) [I asked around...this was the general outlook]
  
• She must have a general happy approach to life and people... (This one's tricky coz I've never seen a gal who can hold on to this for long)
• She must have interests that are somewhat similar if not the same with those of the boy..
  

Some other qualities that can be found admirable in some but not all people are--

• Faith- Religious enough to respect necessary rituals
• Compassion- Not necessarily one who goes 'awww...!' on seeing a puppy on the road..
• Conversation- It get boring to talk to some people for even 5 mins... but some others can hold your rapt attention for hours.. Kinda helps in your old age if can have a low decibel conversation sometimes..
• Street smart/Worldly(as you'd like to put it!)- There must be a fair amount of understanding of the way the world functions.. It's kinda hard to live with one who has a 'rose-glasses' vision to everything..

It seems queer to me sometimes that I'm writing posts like these... Why? why? why? And then a counter question... Why not?? After all,this isn't something that hasn't crossed someone else's mind.... I'd bet that a lot of people do wonder about these issues... Of course there are some remarkably rare, exceptional people who can keep themselves aloof from such issues concerning love..

What I would like from you is...(Yes YOU!.. the one who's reading this now...) a feedback in the form of a comment or another post by the co-authors.. Anything to augment this view of soul-mate searching... Although the post here was a restricted view with only a guy's perspective,it would really be awesome if I could get a girls point of view on this post and also, on the qualities they seek in their ideal mate...

hmm...and like i said this list isn't exhaustive... I wrote a large portion of this post a long time back... Then I made some omissions,some changes from my observations in the recent past and also, some helpful feedback from my friends... Thanks for sparing the time to read this...

How do I choose 'The One'?.... Part II

I found this article while looking for a different view of my article... It's simple but quite satisfactory...

"My Ideal Mate"

I could come up with a very long list of qualities and attributes that I would like for my ideal mate to possess. First of all, I would like for him to have a great personality and sense of humor. He should be kind, loyal, honest, loving, sincere, affectionate, and caring.

He should also possess the qualities of maturity, integrity, and generosity. He must have good morals and values and be a non-smoker and non-drinker.

I would like for my ideal man to be handsome and attractive in his appearance. He would need to be open to the ideas of commitment, marriage, and starting a family someday, because that is very important to me.

My ideal mate would be a wonderful husband and father. He should be able to openly communicate his thoughts and feelings and share everything that is important to him with me. I would like for our relationship to be the kind of loving, trusting relationship that everyone aspires to have. He and I will share many common interests and aspire to achieve the same goals in life together.
We will have such a strong bond that nothing will ever be able to tear us apart.

Finally, what is most important to me is that my ideal mate will be a man who loves me for who I am completely and unconditionally. I will also love him with all of my heart and be completely devoted to him. He and I will share a lifetime of happiness together.

Also, one of my friends has posted her views on this topic in her blog... It was a really interesting read and I thought it would make for a complete roundup of this topic if others could read that as well....

This link will direct you there:

Rachana's blog post

The Pretenders_A Guest article

piyu said...

Hmmmm....that's a neat flow of thoughts and you've certainly made your point out there!
well, this is just what I feel about pretense. Honestly, some find it to be foolishly optimistic ( yea, they use that term) though I agree to totally disagree. Why not see it this way? An act of pretense or even a veil that hides your personality is exciting at times and makes life lively. I am making a very controversial statament but I still am hoping you'd see what I mean.
For starters, like you said, none of us have any right to talk of someon else being a pretender coz' each of us is one. We never ever really show our true self at all points.Or do we? Coz' if we did so, I cannot imagine the consequences. Going by the definition of the wword "pretence/pretense" , I'd just add " an act a human does every single day" in the dictionary. How many times do we follow rules and regulations without wanting to, thus portraying an unreal-we though we are busy muttering something else all along?
Pretense/ce is what we show in our daily life. Maybe coz' we are humans.And since this is trite, we tend to pass of these and cling onto those acts which seem to have affected us only.Human again,maybe.
And isn't it a wonderful mask we have? The human-mask.Any blunder we commit is followed by a realization, a sheepish grin with that much cliched "I'm only human". Maybe we need to use this when we are pointing at others too.And then , we even assign degrees to pretense/ce where a few are within forgivable limits and some not. It is like this perception of good/bad , you know. All subjective out there and none knows what's really right. Phew! I'm right now amidts an ocean of thoughts and am afraid of putting up a post here.
Am still amazed as to why we never really get an image of "we" when we talk of pretense/ce and busily rummage thru' the persons-in-my-life list. Human, maybe. But sure makes life interesting :)
Too long a comment. Apologies. Am human, after all :P