I over heard a couple of girls . . . women . . . girls discussing an article that they had read at lunch today.  Or at least I think it was an article.  At any rate, it was all about the Top 10 Things That a Guy Needs to Know Before Dating You.  In other words, ten deal breakers.  Ten things that if he doesn’t understand, if he can’t get on board with, the two of you just won’t work out as a couple.  This intrigued me.  It posits some interesting questions.  Are there things that, if a guy knew coming in, would make things easier in a relationship?  So obviously I listened even more intently to the conversation that I wasn’t a part of.  (We’re gonna call this an occupational hazard.  I wasn’t eaves dropping because I’m nosy, I was eaves dropping as a study of human behavior for future/current characters.  That’s my story and I’m sticking to it!)

Anyway, I was kind of befuddled by the answers that I heard these girls discussing – and mind you it is their answers that makes me qualify them as girls and not women.  Their biggest concerns seemed to be that a guy know that he needed to take them to fancy dinners and buy them expensive presents; that a guy needed to be able to buy them a really big engagement ring.  Their answers got me to thinking about myself and I realized that my priorities are COMPLETELY different from theirs.  In fact, none of mine have anything to do with money.  So since I can’t seem to focus on anything else but this and I’m going to write it out anyway, here ya go!  My “Top Things That a Guy Needs to Know Before Dating Me.”

1. At least once a week, I will walk out the front door wearing clothes that don’t match.  It’s not on purpose, not some cool hipster style.  It’s because I slept in, was trying to do ten things at once and didn’t bother to double check that my clothes matched.  At some point during the day, I will look down, realize that I don’t match, give a smirk, and then move on with my day.  This is the extent that it will bother me.
2. I’m a planner.  I need to have plans.  Now that’s not to say that I can’t be flexible.  These plans can change.  They can be rearranged.  I’m perfectly okay with saying, let’s get together tomorrow at 7 and we’ll figure out what we’re doing from there.  But this vague, “Oh, I’ll call you tomorrow and we can figure something out” that guys seem to be such fans of, doesn’t work for me!  If we’re talking now, then I don’t need to talk to you tomorrow to figure something out, because we can figure something out RIGHT NOW.  I have other things that I need to get done tomorrow.
3. Disagree with me, call me out if I’m being stupid/unreasonable, and if I tell you to jump you better be asking “Why?”, not “How high?”  There is no bigger turn off than a “yes man”.  It is not all about me.  My wishes, needs and desires are not the only ones that matter.  So you acting like my desires are the only ones that matter in the relationship, tells me that you have very little respect for yourself.  I need to be able to respect the man that I’m with, and if you don’t respect yourself, how I am supposed to?  There is a fine line between a “nice guy” and a “wet sponge.”
4. I’m a goofball.  I get very excited about very random things.  I find joy in everyday life and I like to share that joy.  I do not care that onlookers often find this strange . . . especially when I’m sharing my joy with them, because I don’t know anybody around.  For those that can’t picture this go to my twitter account and find the “Yam” tweet. It’s in all caps because my phone was malfunctioning at the time. But all of my friends laughed hysterically because they knew, despite my insistence that is was just the phone, that I was actually that excited … over yams … you had to be there … go find the tweet.
5. And I know I’m going to catch slack for this one, but here goes.  Don’t tell me that I look beautiful, unless it’s an appropriate descriptor.  I’m a writer, and a word snob.  I’m a HUGE word snob.  There’s a plethora of words out there that can be used to describe how someone looks.  Mix it up, and choose appropriately.  Why?  Because if I’ve just spent two hours getting ready to go out with you, and you tell me that I look beautiful, that compliment will have completely lost its efficacy if you said the same thing to me two days earlier when I didn’t match and was running on four hours of sleep.  Words are powerful if used correctly; empty if they are not.

So there you have it, my top 5 anyway.  I’m sure I could get to ten, but I’m going to stop at five because these alone are making me sound like a bit of a nut, and I tend to believe in stopping while I’m ahead.  I am ahead right?