On the verge

Of giving up. I had a disheartening chat with an ex-turned-confidante today. I'm thisclose to throwing up my hands and giving up in the game of love. We were talking about reciprocity in relationships. It never seems to be even. One person always seems to dig the other person more. Sometimes it works out. When you meet your match, the one who can challenge you but still stay on the same level as you, that's it. Game over. But more often than not, one person is the chaser and the other simply concedes.

All of that is kind of a given. That isn't what depresses me. What depresses me is that during the course of our conversation, it became more and more apparent to me that the average guy suffers from a constant case of grass-is-greener syndrome when it comes to women. Particularly, the meticulous, borderline-anal, diligent nerdy types I find myself inexplixably attracted to time and time again, those guys are the worst because they can't shake that nagging feeling that there's something better out there, whether it's a better woman or a better job or a better lifestyle. I think women are more accepting of flaws. They don't expect their men to be absolutely perfect. Of course, there are the deal-breakers like furry backs or nervous ticks or chronic unemployment, but I think women are more forgiving when a man doesn't meet every item on her wishlist, and less inclined to stray if they've found a man they love.

The average man, however, can see better than he can think. So even when he's in a committed relationship, if he meets a girl that he thinks has the potential to meet more of his wishlist criteria, he becomes curious. He doesn't always stray, but he wonders if the cool girl he ran into at those parties is really as cool as she seemed the first few times he met her. If he pursues her, he's bound to discover that she, too, falls short of his fantasy. Most of the men I know have an ideal woman in mind. And whether they are cognizant of it or not, they chase this nonexistent figment of their imaginations, often leaving behind them a massacred trail of broken hearts. The hardworking, responsible types I tend to fall for are the types of guys who are annoyed by my flightiness and lack of planning and eagerness to cut corners in non-relationship-related arenas like school (I hardly ever attended class in college and cranked out 20 page papers in one night) or work. It bugs them that their mate may not be as dedicated as they are *gasp* to their work. They want the "good girl" type who is polite and proper but cute and fun, who works hard in school and after school trying to climb up that corporate ladder, who has had maybe one or two boyfriends but is not necessarily prude, the type you might run into at church or at the corner coffeeshop reading the latest bestseller. I'm not saying all guys dig that type of girl. I'm saying the ones I like always do.

Enter me: loves to party, dance, drink, and socialize. I work hard for the things/ people that I love. I am passionate, mostly about my loved ones. I'm the type of girl who flits about aimlessly, but when I fall, I fall like a wrecking ball at a demolition site: hard, fast, and a little dangerously. Except at a demolition site, someone's taking precautions to make sure no one gets hurt. There is no such caution exercised when I fall.

I'm not the perfect girl my nerdy boys have been chasing in their dreams. But I think they're being too closed-minded. Maybe I'm just what they need. I can be the kite, head in the clouds and a little unpredictable, and they can be my anchor, ground me, give me something stable to hold on to and come back to. I can't help falling for these guys who have an entirely different girl in mind as "the One." Wake up, fellas. The perfect woman is not some fish you have yet to meet in this vast sea of dating possibilities. She doesn't exist. At some point, you're going to find a fish who might not be as brilliant as you'd like, whose scales might not be quite as shiny as some of the other fish-chicks, who, God forbid, may not come from the best fish family in your neck of the sea, but who loves you unconditionally, despite all your shortcomings. You may not get to check everything off on your wishlist, but don't think of it as settling for something less than you deserve.

Life is not a movie. You can fall in desperately, hopelessly, perfectly, can't-live-without-you kind of love with a person who doesn't fit into some pre-conceived mold. Maybe there's a better mold out there for you that you just don't know about yet. Maybe I'm partly to blame since I can't seem to stop being attracted to the meticulous, borderline-anal, diligent nerdy types. Maybe I'm being hypocritical. If I liked a different type of guy, maybe he'd be more inclined to like me back. It's masochistic, really, going for a guy you know probably won't like you back as much as you like him. But don't let me give up, guys. Love me for who I am, dammit. Look no further.