What Should You Look For In a Guy?

“I’m done with men who don't know what they want from life!” My friend Naina told me when we were both in our late twenties, “A guy can either pledge his undying love to me or hit the road.” “But it takes forever for men to tell you how they feel.” I insisted in confusion. At the time, I had been dating my boyfriend for nine months, but he still hadn’t told me he loved me. He did say, repeatedly, that he just didn’t believe in marriage. As tired as I was of waiting for him to take our relationship seriously, I trusted that he’d grow up sooner or later. “I am not going out with anyone who makes less than 30L,” my friend Saira told me a few years later. “That’s absurd!” I said. At the point, I was living with a perpetually unemployed stoner. As tired as I was of bearing that my boyfriend wouldn’t even consider settling down until his career was more established, I simply couldn’t imagine kicking him to the curb based on his income tax bracket alone. But after the relationship ended, the fourth in a string of romantic failures, I could see that whatever I was doing,  it wasn’t working. But instead of questioning my selection criteria, I just assumed there was something wrong with me. Maybe I was too emotional or needy. Maybe I needed to talk things through too much. Somehow, even though I had never used any selection criteria beyond attraction in choosing guys to date, I was the one who didn’t check all the boxes.
“Make a list,” my mother’s best friend, Janvi, told me one day when I was visiting my family home. She pressed a finger into the table to really emphasise her point. “Write down the traits you can’t live without. If a guy doesn’t have everything you want, don’t even think about dating him.” ‘As if it’s that easy!’ I thought. Dating wasn’t like shopping for a new car. I couldn’t just get all the features I wanted on the spot. And who would be so rigid and idealistic? After all, if I had been guided by a romantic checklist over the previous decade, I never would have dated half my exes. And I would have steered well clear of my man-child boyfriend, who rarely had a steady job and only set his alarm clock to watch a football match in the middle of the night. Come to think of it, maybe Janvi had a point. I had always prided myself on being flexible about men. Love was ageless...and sometimes wage less. It could take the form of a shiny new Mercedes or rusted-out Maruti 800, with a boot that doesn’t close. So why was I always so surprised when one relationship after another broke down in the middle of the freeway? Somehow, I was super-picky about everything else in my life but men. I would take months to decide whether or not to buy a pair of jeans. It took me a full year to choose the right rescue dog. But when it came to guys, I’d always leap before I looked. Maybe I did need to be more clinical in my assessment of potential life partners. I’d already invested so much time and energy on men who not only had no intention of ever marrying me, but also who, if I ever thought about it, were not up to my standards in the first place! It was not like I was getting dumped every time. Once I’d settle in and made a logical assessment, I didn’t want to marry them either. So when I got back home, for the first time in my life, I made a list of what I wanted in a man. It was a short list.  I wanted a guy whose age was within eight years of mine, who was gainfully employed and enthusiastic about his career. And then, there was the most important on the list: I wanted someone who understood the value of honest communication.  I had spent so many years with guys who never wanted to talk to me about their emotions. Whenever I brought up some complicated, heavy subject, they got nervous. I tried for so long to accept that men don’t like to talk things out the way women do. And it was frustrating and lonely to feel like I had so much to give, but what I had to give involved a lot of talking. I wanted to share my passions, my philosophies, my vague ideas...but I always ended up feeling like a tedious teacher, trying to browbeat her fidgety student. That had to change. I couldn’t stand to once again feel like I was offering up my best, and noone would want to take it. 

  “Not having a checklist meant that i’d presented myself to every guy as perfect for him, easy-going and up for whatever.”

I had also dated enough by then to know that superficial traits like a pretty smile and nice laugh weren’t going to see me through the tough times. I’d go into each relationship fixated on some combination of a man’s pretty eyes and that we both love dogs, and I’d come out of it bothered by my boyfriend’s bad habit of sleeping till noon, or storming out in the middle of a serious argument. So much of what works or doesn’t work in a relationship is revealed in the day-to-day, after all. But you don’t have to wait until you’re living together to understand a guy’s personal beliefs and ideas about how he wants to live. Are your habits in line? When you explain to him that something is really important to you, does he take your word for it and respect your needs, or does he ask you to justify any feelings you may have that he views to be irrational? You don’t need to read tea leaves or peer into a crystal ball to see the future with most guys. Their actions will tell you exactly what kind of long-term partner they’ll be —if you just have the courage to step back and see the truth with clear eyes. It’s natural enough to want to list superficial traits on your relationship checklist. Instead of writing ‘gorgeous’  or ‘an action-packed love life’ on your dating profile, though, it might make more sense to list behaviors and attitudes. For example: ‘works hard at his job, but knows how to relax when he gets home’ or even ‘binge-watching The Walking Dead to going out clubbing’. Making my list felt like a risk. I felt vulnerable admitting that I wanted a serious boyfriend. Wasn’t it dangerous to want something so badly that I had no control over the outcome? But in the weeks after writing down my checklist, something shifted inside me. Suddenly, I felt more hopeful, more in control of whatever would happen next. I knew at last that I was either going to find what I was looking for, or I was going to be alone and proud of myself for not settling for less than I deserved. And I could finally see that not having a checklist meant that I presented myself to every guy as someone who was perfect for him, easy-going and up for whatever he wanted to do. Instead of falling into that trap again, I was going to put all my flaws and needs and desires on the table early on...maybe not on the first date, but definitely within the first two months of a relationship. And if that scared a guy off, so be it.  I have to admit, there were suddenly far fewer candidates milling about. I remember going to a wedding soon after I first wrote my checklist, and seeing clearly that none of the men hitting on me were right for me at all. Then (charming!) guy was far too emotionally distant. Another (funny!) guy drank too much and didn’t have a career he cared about. Another (sexy!) guy smoked, lived across the country and seemed temperamental. As disappointing as it was not to have any romantic intrigue in my life, it was refreshing to see the playing field clearly, for maybe the first time ever. I drove home from that trip feeling grateful that this time, I wouldn’t be leaping into yet another deal-end relationship with the wrong guy. It was empowering to realise I could guarantee my own happiness, just by refusing to settle. And a few months later, I met a man who not only held my interest but also checked lots of dreamy boxes that weren’t on my list to start with. He was handsome, he had a career he loved, (and spent our first date) talking my ear off, demonstrating both his intellectual interest and, more simply, his interest in talking, period. When he told me about his family and past relationships, he expressed his values clearly, but he also acknowledged his limitations. He not only agreed to split the bill, but also greeted my strident, feminist views as if it would be absurd for me to feel otherwise. And it became clear that, at heart, we were both homebodies with TV-marathon-loving tendencies. It’s these kinds of similarities and habits that have made our 10 years together so gratifying. What mattered most of all, though, was the key item on my list: my now-husband understood how important honest communication is to building a long-term relationship with another person. When either of us is feeling frustrated and angry, we talk it out until we feel better.  That shared belief has helped me immensely: I accept my flaws and take care of myself in ways that I never did before, thanks to the fact that I can admit my weaknesses to my husband and know that he won’t run away when I do. I’m a calmer, more open, more generous person as a result. It seems so obvious that I never should’ve settled for less, but it can take lots of trial-and-error to figure out the most obvious things. We all need to forgive ourselves for bungling our way towards true love.