Of Boys and Men

Yikes. I just found out that the lastest guy I'm dating is 2 years my junior. ... .... ..... Yikes.

I've always maintained that age is just a number, that it's more a state of mind. Today, I've realised that I am a liar. No, not really. Perhaps it'd be more apt to say that I've been deluding myself somewhat. I've discovered that age, to me, is just a number ... but only if the guy is older than I. Or the same age. Or born in the same Gregorian calendar year. God help him, though, if he were born on the 1st of January, 1981. I don't know why, but I've never been able to be interested in younger men. Boys. Okay, there may be the source of it all. I think of younger men as boys. *A truly lightbulb moment there. The cartoon 'blink' at that moment of relevation was almost audible.*

I like my men to be Men. I've dated more than my fair share of boys, enough, at any rate, to come into the realisation of knowing what I want; and I want a Man.

I want a man with integrity. I want a man who is honest. (An honest man - a paradox? lol. Still, a girl can wish.) I want a man who is able to take resposibility, and I want a man with a decent sense of right and wrong. I want a man who is a man.

Oh, but one more thing. I want that man to be not gay. Gay men can be men as well, I know some of them who are amongst the finest specimen of Men, but I want a heterosexual man. *winkz*

Those are the bare basics, and highly general. Those characteristics, which woman does not yearn for, demand? More personally, I want a Man who knows how to treat me right. I don't believe chivalry is totally dead, it's just that most men have forgotten it. I want him to hold doors for me and pass through them only after me, to watch the path for me so I don't wet my feet in puddles, to comb the town for the perfect cheesecake for me if I so much as make the slightest comment of how much I love cheesecakes. I want that with him, I feel like a Woman. I don't care if all this may seem like backtracking the feminist movement, I am a woman and I dare any woman to tell me that she would not like to be treated thus.

I want a Man who makes me laugh, I want a Man who knows how to handle me. I'm fully aware that I'm not an easy person to handle, what with my odd random rantings, and sporadic bouts of moodiness, but I want a Man who can handle Me. I want a Man whose taste in music and interests match mine to a 'T'. I want a Man with whom I need not even complete my sentences for him to know what I mean. Heck, I don't even have to make a peep for him to know what I'm thinking. It's almost as though breathing is communication enough.

I want a Man who would love me for simply me, no more, no less, for that is all I have to offer. I want a Man who has no delusions of a fairytale love, for we all know that it does not exist. I want a Man who has both feet planted firmly on the ground, a Man with a strong sense of practicality and reason, but who in all this still retains the ability to dream.

I want a Man whom I can shower all my love on. I want a Man whom I can make happy, whose every wish I would have the opportunity to fulfil. I want this Man with whom I could grow old with, with whom I could share my life with, with whom I would live for, with whom I would die for. I want this Man with whom I would learn new things about every day, and love him more and more for each little lesson. Just as I want him to treat me as a Queen, I want him to be my King.

Am I asking for too much? I don't think so. I am not asking any man to BE any of this, what I am waiting for is the Man who IS all this. I may end up waiting forever, but believe I owe it to myself to choose the best I can, and I would sooner end up alone than settle for second best. That is my promise. The question is, does He really exist?

*silence* Unfairly, perhaps, I've realised that I've described this one Man. I believe that had I not met him, I would never have known perfection existed, and I would not have made that promise I did make to myself. He's not the most perfect human being on the planet, but being aware of my own inadequacies and character, he's nothing short of Perfect for me; no more, no less. The requirements for my Dream Man preceeded him; meeting him in the flesh was the singular most startling (and wonderous) discovery of my life. Unfortunately, he did not fulfil what is, perhaps, the most important requirement: that he had to be available. Sometimes I think that God has an extremely wicked sense of humour. Cubaan.... *ala Pendekar Bujang Lapuk*

Is he the One? The Only One I will ever meet my entire life? I believe not. There will be others like him, none exactly like him but, I believe, just as good. Whilst I believe in things like Love and Fate and Destiny, I don't believe that in the course of our lives, we will only fall in love with that ONE person, that each of us has only ONE TRUE Love. I believe our hearts are much too big for that.

Likewise, I believe that there is somebody (or some people?) for whom I am perfect for, without effort. It takes too much to be somebody I'm not, and that I will never be intimidated into being. True luck would be in us being perfect for each other. I am ever the optimist.

But I digress hugely from the theme I started off on. Yeah, to top off all that, I would also require him to be older than me. Well, not so much as require as imagine. I've always imagined my Dream Guy to be older than me. Always 4-6 years older. No, don't ask me how I came about these numbers as I haven't the foggiest. My mind works in bizzare ways.

This latest guy, I like him. For all that he's 22, he works to support his mother and brother as his dad has passed on. He's got dreams, and he seems to be capable of making them all come true. He's funny, no slouch in the brains department, and extremely amiable.

But from the outset I could tell that he's not everything I want. It's been a while now, and he's still nowhere near everything I want. I would love to keep him around for company's sake, but I wonder if it would be doing him an injustice?

And now to aggravate matters further, I find out he's younger than I. (I think he senses my hesitation in this as he's gone through some pains to subtly convince me that it's really no big deal. How sweet.) I really don't know why I'm so hung up on it, or why this should matter so much, I only know that it does! I'm trying to not let it bother me, and it works when I'm not thinking about it, but sometimes somethings just set me off on it again. *sigh* We're all prone to our little prejudices, and believe you me, I realise just how unfair this is little prejudice of mine is. Ah well, all I can promise is that I'll try my best, no more, no less. After all, did I not just write in my last entry about letting go of inhibitions?