Practically Perfect

Whenever someone asks you to describe your ideal mate, you tend to throw around a lot of adjectives to which you may or may not have given a lot of thought. Some women will stick with things like tall, dark and handsome (with which there is nothing wrong but this does only describe appearance) and others will start talking about someone smart, or funny, or caring, or honest. All of these descriptions however, are characteristics and don’t necessarily equate with core values.

And now I’m back on the ‘marriage plan’ book thing again because I found it really interesting. When this book asks you to create a partner profile, it does ask you to consider physical traits but it also asks you to consider what core values you hold and what ones you desire in your potential other half. When most people (I’m assuming right now) imagine relationships, they picture how they will actually be, and here I think, it’s the core values that define the behaviour of others.

Someone may be honest but that could be because they hold ‘honesty’ as a core value or other things which merely result in those actions associated with honesty. You may find honesty important, as most do, but it may be for a different reason than your best friend. And all of this got me to thinking about what I thought my core values would be. I thought about previous relationships and why they didn’t work out and also why I may never have gotten to the ‘relationship’ stage with others. I managed to put my finger on things I hadn’t thought of before and came up with a list.

On the top of that list for me was integrity. For myself, I see a person with integrity as someone who would honour their commitments, no matter how small, or seek to find a compromise. This would be a person who’d call when they said they would, turn up where they said they’d be and basically stand by what they believed in. Someone who wouldn’t sacrifice hopes or desires merely to go with the flow and someone who was strong. Also high up on my list of core values was loyalty which I see as someone who is faithful both physically and emotionally. Someone who wouldn’t cheat and who would never carelessly discuss personal issues outside of the relationship.

I believe there’s certain room for manoeuvre within these values. I’m not saying I’d like someone who could never compromise on anything they wanted. Or that I’d demand someone who would not ever talk about the relationship outside of it if that was their wish. I do however dislike being constantly let down by someone or worrying that I might become a locker room conversation. Which is pretty understandable I think. There are other things on the list as well but each one gives me a bit more of an idea on what I’m looking for. It is still somewhat open for revision though.