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the smitten method
I used to tell my mother: He must be between 5’10” and 6’2”. He’s got to live in Manhattan, because I’m not going to spend all of my time on the subway to the outer-boroughs. He’s got to have dark hair, dark eyes. He can’t look perfect, he can’t be too pretty, and he can’t be too skinny. He’s got to have broad shoulders. He’s got to have a gym membership. He is NOT allowed to have better abs than me. He has to be done with graduate school, he better have at least as many degrees as me, or be so stinkin’ successful that he doesn’t need them. He must not be a workaholic. He must drink – and not just Budweiser. He must eat his vegetables. He must not eschew beans. He may not be from Long Island. He cannot listen to Country. I don’t care whether he likes hip-hop or not but if claims he does and only listens to a/Will Smith or b/The Beastie Boys, he will not do.
And she used to laugh. The laughter would fuse into worry as she realized I was unwavering in my inexorable demands. She’d say: You know you can’t have everything you want. You know that he might not be perfect but you don’t really want perfect and in the end you take the good and the bad. And I’d say, Pshah. So what if she and Dad have been married for 35 years? What does she know?
But, we always knew she was right. I think we use ‘types’ to define what we want in the absence of matches. Matches are a whole different game. They’re the people you meet and you say, nah, this would never work, and you push them away. But, they don’t go away because they know something you don’t know. They’re smarter and they’ve been there and they know that they can’t let you succeed in pushing them out the door. Even if it is a little difficult; even if it takes more work. And so you say, fine, I’ll think about it. And you do - in that way you think about getting up ten minutes earlier every day to do sit-ups, when you know you’re never going to but you entertain the thought just the same. As if that burned calories, and as if that made it a relationship. You carry on in this thinking-about-it mode for a while, and then a while longer, and then one day you realize that you want firmer abs more than you want ten minutes sleep … and more importantly you DO want him, you do need him, and he’s really quite dreamy. And then you beat around the bush and avoid the topic and go on dates with a few strangers and pick a fight and then finally you say: Please stay.
Or, so you would using the Smitten Method.
4 PM. Saturday, November 1st: ‘Get over here. I want to kiss you.’
And so it was. And while he is many of those things, I think he could be none of them and he’d still be the bee’s knees.
comments (11)
He's patient, right? He must be very patient..;-)
1 | Dan | January 12, 2004 11:17 AM
Bah. Once you go 5'8", you'll realize you never had it so great.
2 | Greg | January 12, 2004 01:36 PM
... you realize that you're killing me here, right??
3 | Ari | January 12, 2004 01:49 PM
It's nice when the big lessons aren't painful at all, isn't it?
4 | polichick | January 12, 2004 02:26 PM
Yep, I learned that lesson too. It was a fun lesson to learn.
5 | sugarmama | January 12, 2004 04:37 PM
funny, I've never had a 'type' or anything even remotely resembling a list of sought-after traits. maybe I overemphasize the value of intuition - but basically anyone I really clicked with was a potential suitor to me. I didn't even consider "steady job" a requirement until I learned the hard way that it should be.
6 | erin | January 12, 2004 04:40 PM
I'm with you there, lists and types go out the window when it feels right.
7 | Saara | January 12, 2004 05:04 PM
Oh..all I can say is...jealous. So jealous.
8 | Ismat | January 12, 2004 07:06 PM
Oh, lovely, and couldn't agree with you more.
And I love this:
"4 PM. Saturday, November 1st: ‘Get over here. I want to kiss you.’"
9 | emma | January 13, 2004 09:52 AM
there you go, honey.
10 | red clay | January 13, 2004 11:18 PM
I don't know you but I'm happy for you. I can sense your dancing feet on Cloud 9. May it continue on.
r