The Myth of the Perfect Man

by Kerry Schafer 

 Really, I think this picture says it all. I'd like to give credit to whoever it belongs to, but the thing is all over the 'net and I can't trace its origin. The perfect man is a myth, wandering out there somewhere with Bigfoot. (Actually, I believe it's just possible Bigfoot might be out there. The Perfect Man? No way). If there was such a beast as The Perfect Man, I'm sure I wouldn't want anything to do with him. I'd be intimidated and overwhelmed at first, and then I think I would just get bored. Maybe this is because I am not a perfect woman, and there is no hope of me ever becoming one. One of the best pieces of relationship advice my mother ever gave me was to find somebody whose faults I could live with. And, by extension, somebody who can live with mine. And I suppose there is a sort of perfection in this - the perfect match. The Viking and I are opposites on a lot of scales. If we'd gone to something like eHarmony as our online dating site of choice, I'm sure it would never have introduced us to each other. Our interests, our tastes, our ways of looking at the world are wildly different. I like it that way. The things that really matter - our love of the land, our sense of home, our belief that a relationship is a partnership above all else - these things make us perfect for each other. That, and the fact that he loves me as I am and doesn't feel the need to change me.

Perfection

I'm uncomfortable with the notion of 'the perfect man' if only because it implies that if I wanted this guy, I'd have to be the perfect woman. Let me be the first to assure you that ain't happening. Not in this life time. Perfection is too damned much work! Let's also pause for a moment and reflect upon that fact that perfection is merely an ideal, not an actuality. Perfection = stagnation = death. Not even statues are perfect. Sculptors allow imperfections (usually inspired by their medium) to remain in the finished art so that it 'breathes'. If you dabble in art at all, you know there's a point past which your meddling will drain your piece of life. It's as if, in the pursuit of perfection, the spark of vitality winks out. 

Do you suppose that's what makes vampires popular? They're dead. They can't change. Therefore, they can maintain whatever illusion of perfection an author impues them with.

All that said, I admit that I had a list of qualities I wanted in a guy. It went something like this:

1. Sense of humor
2. Must adore the cats as much as I do
3. Geek, but at least socially conversant on a basic level
4. Mastery of the mundane (meaning he knows how to find a job, keep a job, balance his check book, and survive in the modern world without the use of drugs or weapons.)
5. Sense of adventure and fun
6. Values my happiness as much as his own

Please note that I wasn't asking for anything I couldn't or wouldn't offer in return. That's only fair. I will admit that I selfishly had added a mental number 7 and that was: Someone born within a decade of me. I'd hung out with a guy who was more than a decade my senior. Nice guy. His taste in music made my teeth hurt (we won't get into some of the antiquated gender role notions). So while I got someone only a year older than I, which is what I'd asked for - *his* taste in music sometimes makes my teeth hurt, too. Sorry, hon. 80's hairbands vanished from the face of the earth for a reason. Just sayin'. And yes. *MY* musical preferences make him weep in pain. I guess we're even. But let that be a lesson. When you're asking for something, get to the root of the issue. Age wasn't really the problem. Musical taste was. Yet age is what went on the list. My bad.

How'd I do on the rest of my list? Pretty darned well, if I do say so, myself.

The DH makes me laugh more than anyone I know. He adores our felines (this is him, piloting the boat - that's a cat in the basket - getting her pets from her human dad while he sails). When Autolycus missed the jump from the dock to the boat and ended up in the ocean, you could have walked up, offered the DH $20 for our boat and he would have given it to you, just to keep the cat from ever going for an unwanted swim again. (The cat's fine...aged us ten years.) Geek? Collects comics, plays WoW, Warhammer and Left for Dead. Works for a software company...where we actually met while working for the same group. He does have mastery of the mundane - more than I do. I'm willing to let a few things slide. He isn't. Sometimes that drives me nuts, but I remind myself that I asked for this, and I cope. I think my willingness to let a few things slide makes him crazy, too. I try not to ask. As for the sense of adventure and fun - he's living aboard a sailboat with me and making life choices he admits he'd have laughed off twenty years ago. And that last one. He says it all the time. If I'm not happy, he's not happy. Do we have our conflicts and our hard times? Oh yes.

Remember that thing about perfection? If it's perfect, it's probably dead. Our 'perfect for us' relationship is very much alive and shifting. Some days that easier than others. But I wouldn't trade it.

Seriously? Perfect.

by KAK  

The Perfect Man...

... Has four feet and a lot of hair.

Wha?  You had to see that one coming.

I'm not the Word Whore to offer advice on lifemates of any human flavor. I am, however, the one to  poke fun at the notion of "The Perfect Man." So, for your Tuesday amusement, I invite you to join in the silly.  

The Perfect Man...

1. Can be replicated with sugar, flour, and butter
2. Appears on page 357
3. Is just now entering the space-time continuum
4. Upgraded from ink to pixels
5. Comes in 2oz cans of molding compound and an assortment of colors, some assembly required

Please, go ahead, add to the list of the "Perfect Man." I've a fresh mug of coffee just waiting to be spewed all over my monitor.

Play Doh Photo found here: http://www.tiffanyruda.com/more-fun-with-playdoh

Perfect Man

by Laura Bickle

I don't think that there is A Perfect Man out there, no Adonis-like avatar or archetype of manliness. Just like there is no Perfect Woman, no Aphrodite arising from the sea foam. That's a whole lotta pressure - in being with a Perfect Man, I must be the Perfect Woman, right? I don't want to be that, and I don't want to expect that. I'm not much into outwardly-imposed ideas of perfection. It's sorta dehumanizing.

It also implies that one person can be our everything. That one's identity should be subsumed by another, that one person can meet all our needs and solve all our problems. And that's a very sad, widespread myth. I have a husband who I love and adore. But I'm not going to be able to share his love for his college football team, sushi, or his latest video game. And he doesn't know what my thing with shoes is, what's awesome about kielbasa-cabbage soup, or why Peter Gabriel is a genius. We have other people in our lives who fill other roles - friends and coworkers and family - who understand us in a slightly different milieu.


Khalil Gibran says it best in THE PROPHET:

On Marriage
Kahlil Gibran

You were born together, and together you shall be forevermore.
You shall be together when the white wings of death scatter your days.
Ay, you shall be together even in the silent memory of God.
But let there be spaces in your togetherness,
And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.

Love one another, but make not a bond of love:
Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.
Fill each other's cup but drink not from one cup.
Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf
Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone,
Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.

Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping.
For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.
And stand together yet not too near together:
For the pillars of the temple stand apart,
And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow.