Saturday, December 8, 2007

What I'm Looking for, anyway...Part 1

"So" you may say, "you sure can blah the blah and yadda yadda about the reasons you want a wife, your conceptual ideals of unconventional marriage, and needlessly apologize for your opinions and tone the whole time. Sweet. But I have seen nil, perhaps less, on what you are actually looking for in a partner. Besides that she be amenable to weird tentacle sex and may or may not be a vegan and willing to marry you. WTF?"

Ok, ok, ok, I working up to it. Let me start slow.

Where to begin: personality, looks, values, style?
It feels strange to just make a list of what I find really attractive in a person, especially since these things tend to be both mutable and communicable for me. How can you pick falling in love out of a list? It seems dehumanizing, and objectifying (which I am not altogether opposed to ) and by its nature one-dimensional and incomplete.

But man, my life is wound and strewn with little lists, I am such a mad-crazy list maker I get a little uncomfortable if I leave the house without tools to make notes and lists. So it seems a fitting, if not flattering, format for a patchwork Frankenstein's monster of what I might love.

And honestly, I really enjoy learning to love, and if not love, appreciate, and if not appreciate, at least understand better the differences in taste or style or opinions of the people I come to love. That feeling of being opened, to seeing differently, more vividly, that thought of "well I would never pick that coat/meal/course of study/trick but I can see how it would be perfect for ____" is really special to me and makes me feel both emotionally limber and fully loving.

One more thing about lists. I tend to like the format that I learned through BDSM, but which I've heard that the late, great Cynthia Slater brought to the BDSM community from her business background. It's called "3 lists", I think. Basically the format is three different columns; one for "definitely yes!", one for "maybe, or indifferent" and one for "absolutely no". In BDSM we use the 3 lists to help people figure out their interests and boundaries, to ascertain whether our desires for play are compatible and to try to make sure we don't accidentally pop bubblegum in someones face while they are tied to a tire swing if that is the thing that brings up a bunch of childhood trauma. For my wife-hunt I will mostly likely use something approximating the 3 lists format to flesh out the things that I really like and dislike.

So as long as we can all agree on the caveat that these things are never going to be wholly representative, can and do change, and I am not bound to love nor restricted from loving people and the qualities personified either on or off the lists, I guess I can start.


Just not right now.

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