Distillation.

As a kid I imagined that my friends and I were the only ones in the world that spent hours on end listing qualities of the perfect match. As I got older we would make lists of whom we'd kissed, and rate them on a scale of 1-10. Into my twenties we were still making lists, adding circles or stars around those that we'd made it past kissing with, adding descriptors.

The perfect man list was under constant construction. After seriously dating in college, I added to the list things like: knows how to work on cars, and knows how to use a saw, confident in himself, knows how to communicate, and appreciates southern rock. I also made mental notes, (and should have made physical lists) of my own qualities I would like not to get swallowed when I'm in a relationship. I was nothing less than militant about my own independence, but in practice I had given myself up.

A couple of years ago when Jenn presented me with the idea of having a list, but distilling it down to as few qualities as possible, I admired this approach, but wasn't sure how to recreate my list in this way. How would I get rid of things like knows how to use a saw? It made the list for practical reasons. I set this task aside, thinking it might be impossible.

Just last night this discussion came up again with a couple of good friends over dinner. She knows how to pee outside D said. I was a little shocked, and not because I thought this was a ridiculous thing to put on the list (I thought quite the opposite, actually). I was surprised that women didn't automatically know how to pee outside. I realized then that growing up in the woods meant peeing outside when you didn't want to go all the way back to the house. What was even more shocking was that my good friend B. explained that it took quite a bit of skill to execute the pants-on method of peeing outside.

There are people that take their pants all the way off to pee outside? That means taking your shoes off and then your pants, and then trying to figure out how to not get your socks muddyt... I thought, then B. quickly explained, apparently understanding my look of confusion: I think most women take the one pant leg off. I'm still picturing something like shoot the duck without the roller skates, and trying to pee at the same time...

And so, knows how to pee outside made it onto D's list describing the perfect girl. And though if you take it only for what it sounds like, very superficial, we might be missing the bigger idea. All the things that go along with knowing how to pee outside mean something. Something more than a superficial bullet point on a long list of qualities.

I've tried to come up with one or two words to describe what I'm looking for, but for whatever reason it hasn't worked. Am I confusing the details of what I appreciate in certain people with the more general qualities I would look for in a partner??

So, here I am, trying to create a new list, removing all the 'superficial' qualities and finding more appropriate words to describe and combine the ones that are left.

I suppose I might be confusing the things we appreciate about people, the little things, the details with what to look for in a person. If we look for the details, disappointment is inevitable. If we look for the bigger picture we can discover the details as we go.

But this doesn't solve my problem of narrowing the list to exclude the LITTLE things that are important to me for BIG reasons. Things like knowing how to use a saw. I suppose anyone can learn, but, as the saying goes: there's no substitute for experience.