"If you want this choice position, / Have a cheery disposition..."

[chanaleh]

Oh, so tired. :-} My last day at MIT tomorrow promises to be a very long one, and I'm headed to bed.

But, in the middle of this intensive soul-searching period, I shall first post this list that I wrote up a couple of years ago and have been meaning to post ever since.

The list itself is undated, but the to-do list scrawled on the reverse is dated July 2002, and I suspect this dates from sometime that fall. Make of that what you will. I might augment it slightly, today, but on the whole it still seems impressively thorough.


What I wish for in a partner

1. Someone:
   
   • bright (who can keep up with or a step ahead of me)
     
   • funny (who can make me laugh -- often and happily)
     
   • kind (who treats me and other people in a way that makes me proud to be associated with him)
     
   • articulate (whom I love to hear talk)
     
   • contemplative (who can make me think more deeply about things, and/or be moved by me to do so)
     
   • musical (whom I can sing with)
     
   • responsible (whom I can trust actively with half the practical details of everyday life, the future, and our [mutual and individual] goals)
   
   
2. A willing and interested partner in making a Jewish home, living an engaged Jewish life, and raising Jewish children.
   
3. A willing and interested partner in making a comfortable and welcoming home and raising secure, creative, well-socialized (and, of course, gorgeous) children.
   
4. Someone who keeps life interesting.
   
5. Someone with an adventurous spirit, interested in doing and seeing, who can talk me into doing things I might not otherwise do. Someone I can get psyched about driving cross-country with -- but who also finds it sustaining to lie on a beach with me, and feels grounded at home as well.
   
6. Someone I get a physical charge out of being near, whom I love to look at and touch (and please).
   
7. Someone who can appreciate and value my wit and charm and grace and power and beauty and skill.
   
8. Someone who makes me feel safer, stronger, empowered, able to take on the world.
   
9. Someone I can share key activities and interests with (e.g., theater).
   
10. Someone who will dance with me. (Ideally, with skill and assurance; but more importantly, with pleasure and enthusiasm.)
    
11. Someone in touch with his own needs, preferences, desires, dreams -- and able to work toward actualizing them.

The current status of these various elements is left as an exercise for the reader.

I am tempted to turn off comments, but I don't necessarily want to stifle sincere discussion on these topics.
However, ANYONE who (is not my current partner and) sends me ANYTHING resembling a checked-off application -- even in jest, and those of you whom I'm addressing bloody well know who you are; yes, you -- will be summarily killed. I'm just not in the mood for that kind of feedback, thanks.

Comments

[hauntmeister.livejournal.com]

Say hello and goodbye to the Institute for me!

Oddly, one of the things I miss most about that place are the $3.00 lunch boxes from the Chinese food trucks.

Good not-a-checklist. Oddly though, I noted that it didn't mention anything about "not involved with anybody" or "faithful." I figure that's either assumed, or unimportant. For me, it would be the former.

[chanaleh.livejournal.com]

Interestingly, I would place it somewhere between "assumed" and "not important". That is, to the degree (or in the ways) to which it is important, I assume it. But then my take on these things is not the mainstream one, and although I have a fairly clear idea of what I mean, to spell it out would take a whole 'nother soul-searching post.

[noghri.livejournal.com]

Well, since I started singing it as soon as I read the subject line...

If you want this choice position
Have a cheery disposition
Rosy cheeks, no warts
Play games, all sorts

You must be kind, you must be witty
Very sweet and fairly pretty
Take us on outings, give us treats
Sing songs, bring sweets

Never be cross or cruel
Never give us castor oil or gruel
Love us as a son and daughter
And never smell of barley water

If you won't scold and dominate us
We will never give you cause to hate us
We won't hide your spectacles so you can't see
Put toads in your bed or pepper in your tea

Hurry, Nanny
Many thanks sincerely
Jane and Michael Banks

(I like the Simpsons version better though)

Tempted to make the checklist now, just to see how you'll summarily kill me :)

"Hurry, Nanny; many thanks/ Sincerely Jane and Michael Banks"

[chenoameg.livejournal.com]

Mary Poppins.

(I have the advantage that it was the favorite movie of a preschooler I used to sit for.)

[vettecat.livejournal.com]

Sounds remarkably like my list... except I'd substituted "likes my cat and my friends" for the singing and dancing. :-) Hope you're doing well on the wish-fulfillment!

[mycroft.livejournal.com]

Good luck with that. *hug*

[underwatercolor.livejournal.com]

Whee! Life, love, and tiny text execution, all in one post. :) And exercises... wow... let me count the ways I'm so not touching that... :)

I agree that it seems impressively thorough. Interesting things to revisit. :)

[miraclaire.livejournal.com]

Quite a list :) I think it has lots of good things on it.

[melopoeia.livejournal.com]

hmm. I've never made a list. I suppose but for a few things, Mike is mine.
And there some things friends can do. He fills in all the essential ones anyhow it seems. With a little work sometimesm but I'm discovering relationships are work. I guess its all about whether the job is worth it or not.

Interesting.

[kimberlogic.livejournal.com]

that's a very thoughtful and balanced list. *hugs*

[muffyjo]

Is the line from Mary Poppins where the kids re-write the ad for their father?

And I really like that list. Sure, mine is different, but I do support the idea. It's always been that "3 wishes" problem with the lamp, the genie, the fortunate rich person, whatever...you have to be ever so specific so as to get what you need rather than what you have asked for.

Why is it that it's so hard to articulate what we really need in life? Why are we so afraid of knowing that? Maybe it lays us too vulnerable to those who would use it against us, willingingly or un.

Anyway, those are my random additions to your thougths. I hope that you are in a place where you have found peace with that list.

[gentlescholar.livejournal.com]

I once thought about making such a list, and made the mistake of mentioning it to a female friend, who proceeded to rant at me at great length about what a horrible person I was for even considering such an idea.

[beardedone.livejournal.com]

I agree that you should make such a list. If a woman can make such a list, and not be scolded for it, then they shouldn't be able to scold you for doing the same thing.

List away!!!

[hammercock.livejournal.com]

I think this list is much better than a lot of other lists I've seen people make. I don't see anything wrong with it, nor with either a man or a woman making a list like this one.

[drwex]

I agree. it's fine to have such a list, particularly as an aid to thinking clearly. I'd add that it helps to have priorities and be willing to be flexible on the things that are low priority and able to stand your ground on the things that are high priority.

However, I've discovered that what is high/low priority may depend on the partner. That was a bit of a shock to me.

so

[queendeb.livejournal.com]

i never really made a list like that;
it always seemed daunting
or maybe limiting
...sort of like actually writing my resume.

i love your list
because it's basically
the list i would make
and didn't even want to admit for some stupid reason.

thank you.

[pressburger.livejournal.com]

The problem with making a list like this, in my experience, is that you one day meet someone who fits all these things and is totally wrong for you but you end up getting engaged to them anyway and then 96 days later ending up getting disengaged in a rather unpleasant fashion.