relationships

Something occurred to me recently. After a string of satisfactory but unexceptional first dates, and a series of conversations with friends on the frustrations of being single in the big city, it occurred to me that perhaps us single ladies need to change our criteria for a boyfriend (and the process for finding one), to align more with the qualities we look for in a best friend. Hear me out.

If you’re a single woman, have you ever thought, even for a second, how much easier life would be if you could snap your fingers and fall in love with your BFF? Your bestie gets you. She’s awesome and supportive. She’s funny as hell and she shares your obsession for gluten-free cooking. She’d be the first person you’d call to share news (good or bad) and she never forgets your birthday or your disdain for raw mushrooms. In short, aside from the lack of sexual attraction, she’s everything you’re looking for in a partner. Or she should be.

For busy young professionals, leisure time is precious, and when you’re single, spending that time on dates that generally fail to elicit anything higher than an average rating, can seem like a pretty poor ROI (my finance professor would be unimpressed). But if we revise our criteria for would-be suitors to be more like what we look for in our closest friends, and if we approach the dating game the way we would approach a new friendship, we might not experience as many wasted hours on awkward dinner dates. Here’s how this plays out.

To begin with, here are some common traits that my single girlfriends look for in potential mates (garnered via a very scientific survey, aka asking around):
“He’s got to be tall.”
“I like a guy who wears a suit.”
“If he can make me laugh, that’s a good start.”
“He has to have a university degree.”
“I usually have good luck with Jewish guys, they seem to be into my particular look.”

Imagine if I applied that same criteria to my girlfriends. Attention everyone, I can only hang out with funny girls in formal wear, over 5’8″. PhDs are a must. Jewish ladies preferred.
Ridiculous, right?

But if we reverse-engineer this whole situation, and determine the qualities that I love about my friends and then apply them to potential dates, we get this:
I’m looking for someone with a great personality who will spend hours laughing with me about the most ridiculous things. Please be loyal, trustworthy, and intelligent. Please be respectful, as well as someone who I can respect. Please call me on my bullshit, but also support and love me when that bullshit occurs, because I’m not perfect. Don’t judge me based on my job, my income, or my where I went to school. Be interested in what I have to say. Comfort me when I’m sad. Celebrate with me when I’m happy. Do all this for me and I promise to do the same.

Now that’s a relationship I can get behind.

As for the process of finding this amazing person, does it happen on the first date? Not likely. You didn’t know your bestie was your bestie the first time you met her either, did you? No, because the best relationships are most often discovered, created, and built over time and through a series of shared experiences. So chill out about the dating scene. Stop applying unreasonable expectations to the guys you meet (no, he doesn’t need to have a six-figure income and a working knowledge of Hugo Boss), and let things grow organically. Do this and maybe, just maybe, you’ll find the person who can be your best friend and your boyfriend, all in one.

Daniela Andrews is the founder of Curious Citizen, a lifestyle blog where she shares her unique point of view on life, style, travel, food, and design. Her writing has appeared in The Kit, National Post, and blogTO. She created Curious Citizen as a way to share her unique view with the world.