Man Hunting

I was talking to a friend of mine yesterday about being single. She’s married. Our conversation digressed from talking about a wedding that she’s going to be in next year to me listing my must-haves and would-love-to-haves in a man. I’m not sure how it got there, but I think it had to do with set-ups and blind dates.

I don’t think my standards are too high, but maybe they are….You tell me.

Requirements

1. Age Range: 25-40. Anything younger than 25, I would feel like I’m robbing the cradle. Anything older than 40, I would feel like I’m dating my dad.

2. Must tolerate my love of sports. At first glance, you would think that a girl sports lover would be appealing to a man, but I’ve found the opposite to be true. So, I’ve decided that if they don’t share my love of basketball, football, baseball, the Olympics, etc, then they must at the very least tolerate it.

Note :**My Dad (the one who afflicted me with this problem) once told me that I should play dumb. I just can’t do it. Its not in me. I’m not that good of an actress.

3. Have ambition. I’m not saying that they have to strive to be a CEO or a doctor, but the desire to stay gainfully employed is key. I need someone that can carry insurance if I ever quit work to write (not likely to happen, but what a dream!). Plus, the idea of supporting a man is less than appealing to me.

4. Must be a handyman or able to call and pay for one. Either choice works for me. I really don’t care. What I don’t want is a man that says he can do something when he really can’t. There’s nothing worse than spending money to fix something that wasn’t broken before Mr. I KNOW I Can got a hold of it because he didn’t want to take the time to learn how to do it right.

Note: **My cousin lost phone service and plumbing in her master bedroom because she married a Mr. I KNOW I Can the first time around. Thankfully, she’s no longer married to him.

5. Must value education. This is a key requirement. I once had a guy tell me (a Cum Laude Graduate of Clemson University and the daughter of two educators both with reasonably advanced degrees) that he didn’t think education was important. That was a first date. He didn’t get a second.

Note: **Here’s the deal. You don’t have to be educated to value it. My grandfather dropped out of high school to join the Navy. He became a self-educated farmer (he read everything he could get his hands on I’m told), and was absolutely adamant that all three of his daughters were going to college (they graduated with four year degrees.). He even helped put his younger siblings through college. Education was important to him even though he wasn’t formally educated.

For the past couple of days, I’ve been trying to figure out how to work this into a story and I don’t think I can. Not in a way that hasn’t been done (better) before. I do think that this would be a good way to get to know your characters. I write romance mostly and I think this could be a good way to learn what motivates my characters and to see how they’re working at cross purposes. I think that I’m going to make a list for Seth and MacKenzie (my new characters) and see what happens. I think this could really add tension to the story. 

So what are your requirements? What are your main character’s requirements?