This week, Kim Aung, an experienced dater, gives us her view of “What makes a man exceptional?” in our continuing Friday is for Females series. Enjoy.–cg
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, before you is one Ms. Kim Aung. She is accused of being a serial dater. The charges stem from her ultimate goal of finding “The Exceptional Man”, the man that makes her heart feel funny, the one her mother will eventually dote over, and the intellectual jokester to grow old with. In the course of 25 years, since the age of 17, she has perhaps spent a total of one year “single”…
And on and on it would go. That is, assuming, Jack McCoy set his steely gaze upon a bunch of Law and Order extras and read my list of dating tragedies. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think I date jerks, nor do I think I’m a jerk. I just often feel that I’m on a perpetual quest for “the one”. I thought I had the formula right three times in life, but I guess that’s why you don’t keep your eggs in one basket. The latest tragedy ended with me moving out in a whirlwind of emotion and a feeling of “second best”.
As for types of guys that I date, I think I’ve sampled the platter pretty well… there was the bagpipe playing rocket scientist, the Steelers FANATIC 3D artist, the cowboy wannabe salesman, the club head finance dude, the “authentic bro” engineer, the wannabe hippie lawyer… and so on. All great boys — men really. But what went wrong? One of my favorite cartoons of all time is an xkcd cartoon, and it tries to input “love” into a mathematical equation. Duh! You can’t do that. Haha, the humor. But really, on paper, you can jam two incredibly similar people together and you think that sparks will fly in real life. How often, though, is that the case?
As of now, I’m currently in my longest stretch of “being single”… and I love it. Suddenly I’m me. I feel freed, as the weights of expectation have been lifted from my shoulders, and I’m once again at liberty to pursue that which will ultimately make me the most “me”.
I can’t be described on paper — when I was 17 someone (a guy, actually) called me a “bundle of paradoxes”. At 25, I couldn’t be more proud to have that distinction. I’d like to think I was ladylike, feminine, and delicate. But I have this tough side that causes me to swear like a truck driver during Monday Night Football. The Exceptional Man will tease me for being too much of a “dude”, but laugh with me as Tim Tebow throws another pick, and cries. The Exceptional Man will pretend to moan and whine during Love Actually, but will silently put his arm around me as Emma Thompson learns that Professor Snape (Alan Rickman) is having an affair with the office tart, and I lose it. The Exceptional Man will understand why I’m a food snob that really really loves nacho cheese. The Exceptional Man will be him, while allowing me to be “me”. So I’ve discovered it: the Exceptional Man is a balanced man. A little bit of this, a little bit of that, a lot of something and a whole lot of another.
A lot of people will maintain that an Exceptional Man displays an array of “grown up” qualities. But isn’t that implied by saying “man”? Of course an Exceptional Man is stable, emotionally available, honest, maintains a level of confidence, exerts a reasonable level of sense and intuition… etc. Really, it’s not a question of adulthood or not, but a matter of fit and understanding that I’m trying to explain.
If you list the five most important things you look for in a guy (anything from work ethic to level of education to political sway… it’s all so personal), the Exceptional Man will fit the mold, and perhaps break it. I thought at one point that I would be OK with settling. I’m too old to settle. Likewise, I don’t want someone to compromise their top five criteria for me. Of course, there are little things that every girl looks for — the flowers, the winks, the cards, the hand holding, romantic dinners, shared hatred of the Green Bay Packers. It’s my personal opinion that the bricks of a relationship are similarities and mutual attractions, and romance is the mortar that holds it all together. As time passes, like mortar drying, the relationship gets stronger. But the Exceptional Man will be more than happy to oblige helping me put my coat on, or walk down the street side on the sidewalk.
Everyone’s Exceptional Man is going to be a different man, but at the end of the day, an Exceptional Man ought to complement the Exceptional Woman that he’s with.
Kim Aung, a native Chicagoan, works in commercial real estate marketing, and continues on the quest for not only the Exceptional Man of her dreams, but the best damn hot dog in the city of Chicago. Find out about her, and her antics on Twitter — @kimbean_.
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Nice post, Kim.
And no, I don’t think that having adult qualities is at all implied by using the word ‘man.’ Technically (and legally), adulthood starts at 18 – but I think we all know plenty of 40 year olds that DON’T possess the qualities of a man.
Being a man doesn’t mean that the fun stops, it just means you have your shit together.